: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




7T/K- fast' 



ER!> 



NEW 



TABERNACLE SERMONS 



BY 



T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 



AUTHOR OF 



"CRUMBS SWEPT UP? "SHOTS AT SUNDRY TARGETS? etc. 



Delivered in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, 



A 7, 



PUBLICATION AUTHORIZED. 



J 7 



iVYORK: 

, PUBLISHER 



E. B. TREAT 

Offick of The Pulpit Treasury, 
1886. 




-*n£ 






Fac-Similie of 

DR. TALMAGE'S 

LETTER OF AUTHORITY 

FOR ISSUING THIS SERIES OF SERMONS. 



2. A. T^^c 







Copyright 1886 by E. B. Treat. 



CONTENTS 



Brawn and Muscle . . . . .7 

The Pleiades and Orion .... 21 

The Queen's Visit . . . . .34 

Vicarious Suffering ... .45 

Posthumous Opportunity . „ . .59 

The Lord's Razor ..... 72 

Windows Toward Jerusalem . . . .83 

Stormed and Taken ..... 95 

All the World Akin . . . .108 

A Momentous Quest ..... 119 

The Great Assize . . . * . . 134 

The Road to the City . . . . 147 

The Ransomless . . . . . .158 

The Three Groups . . , . . 171 
The Insignificant ...... 184 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The Three Rings . . . . .197 

How He Came to Say It . . . . .209 

Castle Jesus ...... 221 

Strd?plng the Slain . 233 

Sold Out ...... 246 

Summer Temptations ..... 259 

The Banished Queen ..... 274 

The Day We Live In . . . .285 

Capital and Labor ..... 297 

Despotism of the Needle . . . .311 

Tobacco and Opium ..... 325 

Why are Satan and Sin Permitted? . 339 

"Worship in Song ..... 353 

The Laughter of the Bible . . . .367 

The Congratulations of Heaven . . .381 

Beauties -of Sprung . . . . .393 

Easter-Tide ...... 399 



BRAWN AND MUSCLE. 



" And Samson went down to Timnath." — Judges xiv: 1. 

There are two sides to the character of Samson. 
The one phase of his life, if followed into the particulars, 
would administer to the grotesque and the mirthful; but 
there is a phase of his character fraught with lessons of 
solemn and eternal import. To these graver lessons we 
devote our morning sermon. 

This giant no doubt in early life gave evidences of what 
he was to be. It is almost always so. There were two 
Napoleons — the boy Napoleon and the man Napoleon — ■ 
but both alike; two Howards — the boy Howard and the 
man Howard — but both alike; two Samsons — the boy 
Samson and the man Samson — but both alike. This giant 
was no doubt the hero of the playground, and nothing 
could stand before his exhibitions of youthful prowess. At 
eighteen years of age he was betrothed to the daughter of 
a Philistine. Going down toward Timnath, a lion came 
out upon him, and, although this young giant was weap- 
onless, he seized the monster by the long mane and shook 
him as a hungry hound shakes a March hare, and made 
his bones crack, and left him by the wayside bleeding 
under the smiting of his fist and the grinding heft of his 
heel. 

There he stands, looming up above other men, a mount- 



8 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

ain of flesh, his arms bunched with muscle that can lift 
the gate of a city, taking an attitude defiant of every- 
thing. His hair had never been cut, and it rolled down in 
seven great plaits over his shoulders, adding to his bulk, 
fierceness, and terror. The Philistines want to conquer 
him, and therefore they must find out where the secret of 
his strength lies. 

There is a dissolute woman living in the valley of Sorek 
by the name of Delilah. They appoint her the agent in 
the case. The Philistines are secreted in the same build- 
ing, and then Delilah goes to work and coaxes Samson to 
tell what is the secret of his strength. " Well/ 9 he says, 
" if jou should take seven green withes such as they fasten 
wild beasts with and put them around me I should be per- 
fectly powerless/'' So she binds him with the seven green 
withes. Then she claps her hands and says: " They 
come — the Philistines!" and he walks out as though they 
were no impediment. She coaxes him again, and says: 
" Now tell me the secret of this great strength?" and he 
replies: " If you should take some ropes that have never 
been used and tie me with them I should be just like 
other men." She ties him with the ropes, claps her 
hands, and shouts: " They come — the Philistines!" He 
walks out as easily as he did before — not a single obstruc- 
tion. She coaxes him again, and he says: " Now, if you 
should take these seven long plaits of hah*, and by this 
house-loom weave them into a web, I could not get away. ° 
So the house-loom is rolled up, and the shuttle flies back- 
ward and forward and the long plaits of hair are woven 
into a web. Then she claps her hands, and says: " They 



BKAWK AND MUSCLE. 9 

come — the Philistines V He walks out as easily as he did 
before, dragging a part of the loom with him. 

But after awhile she persuades him to tell the truth. 
He says: " If you should take a razor or shears and cut off 
this long hair, I should be powerless and in the hands of 
my enemies." Samson sleeps, and that she may not wake 
him up during the process of shearing, help is called in. 
You know that the barbers of the East have such a skill- 
ful way of manipulating the head to this very day that, in- 
stead of waking up a sleeping man, they will put a man 
wide awake sound asleep. I hear the blades of the shears 
grinding against each other, a*>d I see the long locks fall- 
ing off. The shears or razor accomplishes what green 
withes and new ropes and house-loom could not do. Sud- 
denly she claps her hands, and says: " The Philistines be 
upon thee, Samson!" He rouses up with a struggle, but 
his strength is all gone. He is in the hands of his 
enemies. 

I hear the groan of the giant as they take his eyes out, 
and then I see him staggering on in his blindness, feeling 
his way as he goes on toward Gaza. The prison door is 
open, and the giant is thrust in. He sits down and puts 
his hands on the mill-crank, which, with exhausting hori- 
zontal motion, goes day after day, week after week, month 
after month — work, work, work! The consternation of 
the world in captivity, his locks shorn, his eyes punctured, 
grinding corn in Gaza! 

I. First of all, behold in this giant of the text that 
physical power is not always an index of moral power. 
He was a huge man — the lion found it out, and the three 



10 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

thousand men whom he slew found it out; yet he was the 
subject of petty revenges and out-gianted by low passion. 
I am far from throwing any discredit upon physical 
stamina. There are those who seem to have great admira- 
tion for delicacy and sickliness of constitution. I never 
could see any glory in weak nerves or sick headache. 
Whatever effort in our day is made to make the men and 
women more robust should have the favor of every good 
citizen as well as of every Christian. Gymnastics may be 
positively religious. 

Good people sometimes ascribe to a wicked heart what 
they ought to ascribe to a slow liver. The body and the 
soul are such near neighbors that they often catch each 
other's diseases. Those who never saw a sick day, and 
who, like Hercules, show the giant in the cradle, have 
more to answer for than those who are the subjects of life- 
long infirmities. He who can lift twice as much as you 
can, and walk twice as far, and work twice as long, will 
have a double account to meet in the judgment. 

How often it is that you do not find physical energy in- 
dicative of spiritual power! If a clear head is worth more 
than one dizzy with perpetual vertigo — if muscles with the 
play of health in them are worth more than those drawn 
up in chronic "rheumatics" — if an eye quick to catch 
passing objects is better than one with vision dim and un- 
certain — then God will require of us efficiency just in pro- 
portion to what he has given us. Physical energy ought 
to be a type of moral power. We ought to have as good 
digestion of truth as we have capacity to assimilate food. 
Our spiritual hearing ought to be as good as our physical 



BKAWN AND MUSCLE. 11 

hearing. Our spiritual taste ought to be as clear as our 
tongue. Samsons in body, we ought to be giants in moral 
power. 

But while you find a great many men who realize that 
they ought to use their money aright, and use their intelli- 
gence aright, how few men you find aware of the fact that 
they ought to use their physical organism aright! With 
every thump of the heart there is something saying, 
"Work! work!" and, lest we should complain that we 
have no tools to work with, God gives us our hands and 
feet, with every knuckle, and with every joint, and with 
every muscle saying to us, " Lay hold and do something." 

But how often it is that men with physical strength do 
not serve Christ! They are like a ship full manned aud 
full rigged, capable of vast tonnage, able to endure all 
stress of weather, yet swinging idly at the docks, when 
these men ought to be crossing and recrossing the great 
ocean of human suffering and sin with God's supplies of 
mercy. How often it is that physical strength is used in 
doing positive damage, or in luxurious ease, when, with 
sleeves rolled up and bronzed bosom, fearless of the shafts 
of opposition, it ought to be laying hold with all its might, 
and tugging away to lift up this sunken wreck of a world. 

It is a most shameful fact that much of the business of 
the Church and of the world must be done by those com- 
paratively invalid. Eichard Baxter, by reason of his 
diseases, all his days sitting in the door of the tomb, yet 
writing more than a hundred volumes, and sending out an 
influence for God that will endure as long as the " Saints' 
Everlasting Rest." Edward Payson, never knowing a 



13 NEW TABEBNACLE SEKMONS. 

well day, yet how he preached, and how he wrote, helping 
thousands of dying souls like himself to swim in a sea of 
glory! And Kobert JVFCheyne, a walking skeleton, yet 
you know what he did in Dundee, and how he shook Scot- 
land with zeal for God. Philip Doddridge, advised by his 
friends, because of his illness, not to enter the ministry, 
yet you know what he did for the " rise and progress of 
religion " in the Church and in the world. 

"Wilberforce was told by his doctors that he could not 
live a fortnight, yet at that very time entering upon phil- 
anthropic enterprises that demanded the greatest endur- 
ance and persistence. Robert Hall, suffering excrucia- 
tions, so that often in his pulpit while preaching he would 
stop and he down on a sofa, then getting up again to 
preach about heaven until the glories of the celestial city 
dropped on the multitude, doing more work, perhaps, than 
almost any well man in his day. 

Oh, how often it is that men with great physical endur- 
ance are not as great in moral and spiritual stature! 
"While there are achievements for those who are bent all 
their days with sickness — achievements of patience, 
achievements of Christian endurance — I call upon men of 
health to-day, men of muscle, men of nerve, men of phys- 
ical power, to devote themselves to the Lord. Giants in 
body, you ought to be giants in soul. 

II. Behold also, in the story of my text, illustration of 
the fact of the damage that strength can do if it be mis- 
guided. It seems to me that this man spent a great deal 
of his time in doing evil — this Samson of my text. To 
pay a bet which he had lost by guessing of his riddle ha 



BRAWN AND MUSCLE. 13 

robs and kills thirty people. He was not only gigantic in 
strength, but gigantic in mischief, and a type of those 
men in all ages of the world who, powerful in body or 
mind, or any faculty of social position or wealth, have used 
their strength for iniquitous purposes. 

It is not the small, weak men of the day who do the 
damage. These small men who go swearing and loafing 
about your stores and shops and banking-houses, assailing 
Christ and the Bible and the Church — they do not do the 
damage. They have no influence. They are vermin that 
you crush with your foot. But it is the giants of the day, 
the misguided giants, giants in physical power, or giants 
in mental acumen, or giants in social position, or giants in 
wealth, who do the damage. 

The men with sharp pens that stab religion and throw 
their poison all through our literature; the men who use 
the power of wealth to sanction iniquity, and bribe justice, 
and make truth and honor bow to their golden scepter. 

Misguided giants — look out for them ! In the middle and 
the latter part of the last century no doubt there were 
thousands of men in Paris and Edinburgh and London 
who hated God and blasphemed the name of the Al- 
mighty; but they did but little mischief — they were small 
men, insignificant men. Yet there were giants in those 
days. 

Who can calculate the soul-havoc of a Rousseau, going 
on with a very enthusiasm of iniquity, with fiery imagina- 
tion seizing upon all the impulsive natures of his day? or 
David Hume, who employed his life as a spider employs 
its summer, in spinning out silken webs to trap the un- 



14 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

wary? or Voltaire, the most learned man of his day, 
marshaling a great host of skeptics, and leading them out 
in the dark land of infidelity? or Gibbon, who showed an 
uncontrollable grudge against religion in his history of one 
of the most fascinating periods of the world's existence-- 
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — a book in 
which, with all the splendors of his genius, he magnified 
the errors of Christian disciples, while, with a sparseness of 
notice that never can be forgiven, he treated of the Chris- 
tian heroes of whom the world was not worthy? 

Oh, men of stout physical health, men of great mental 
stature, men of high social position, men of great power of 
any sort, I want you to understand your power, and I 
want you to know that that power devoted to God will be 
a crown on earth, to you typical of a crown in heaven; but 
misguided, bedraggled in sin, administrative of evil, God 
will thunder against you with His condemnation in the day 
when millionaire and pauper, master and slave, king and 
subject, shall stand side by side in the judgment, and 
money-bags, and judicial ermine, and royal robe shall be 
riven with the lightnings. 

Behold also, how a giant may be slain of a woman. 
Delilah started the train of circumstances that pulled down 
the temple of Dagon about Samson's ears. And tens of 
thousands of giants have gone down to death and hell 
through the same impure fascinations. It seems to me 
that it is high time that pulpit and platform and printing- 
press speak out against the impurities of modern society. 
Fastidiousness and Prudery say: " Better not speak — you 
will rouse ur> adverse criticism; you will make worse what 



BRAWX AXD MUSCLE. 15 

you want to make better; better deal in glittering gener- 
alities; the subject is too delicate for polite ears. " But 
there comes a voice from heaven overpowering the minc- 
ing sentimentalities of the day, saying: " Cry aloud, spare 
not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people 
their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.''' 

The trouble is that when people write or speak upon 
this theme they are apt to cover it up with the graces 
of belles-lettres, so that the crime is made attractive in- 
stead of repulsive. Lord Byron in " Don Juan " adorns 
this crime until it smiles like a May queen. Michelet, the 
great French writer, covers it up with bewitching rhetoric 
until it glows like the rising sun, when it ought to be made 
loathsome as a small-pox hospital. There are to-day influ- 
ences abroad which, if unresisted by the pulpit and the 
printing-press, will turn Xew York and Brooklyn into 
Sodom and Gomorrah, fit only for the storm of fire and 
brimstone that whelmed the cities of the plain. 

You who are seated in your Christian homes, compassed 
by moral and religious restraints, do not realize the gulf of 
iniquity that bounds you on the north and the south and 
the east and the west. While I speak there are tens of 
thousands of men and women going over the awful plunge 
of an impure life; and while I cry to God for mercy upon 
their souls, I call upon you to marshal in the defense of 
your homes, your Church and your nation. There is a 
banqueting hall that you have never heard described. 
You know all about the feast of Ahasuerus, where a 
thousand lords sat. You know all about Belshazzar's 
carousal, where the blood of the murdered king spurted 



10 HEW TABERHACLE SERiAlOHS. 

into the faces of the banqueters. You may know of the 
scene of riot and wassail, when there was set before Esojdus 
one dish of food that cost $400,000. But I speak now of a 
different banqueting hall. Its roof is fretted with fire. 
Its floor is tesselated with fire. Its chalices are chased 
with fire. Its song is a song of fire. Its walls are but- 
tresses of fire. Solomon refers to it when he says: " Her 
guests are in the depths of hell." 

Our American communities are suffering from the gos- 
pel of Free Loveism, which, fifteen or twenty years ago, 
was preached on the platform and in some of the churches 
of this country. I charge upon Tree Loyeism that it has 
blighted innumerable homes, and that it has sent in- 
numerable souls to ruin. Free Loveism is bestial; it is 
worse — it is infernal! It has furnished this land with 
about one thousand divorces annually. In one county in 
the State of Indiana it furnished eleven divorces in one 
day before dinner. It has roused up elopements, North, 
South, East, and West. You can hardly take up a paper 
but you read of an elopement. As far as I can understand 
the doctrine of Free Loveism it is this: That every man 
ought to have somebody else's wife, and every wife some- 
body else's husband. They do not like our Christian 
organization of society, and I wish they would all elojje, 
the wretches of one sex taking the wretches of the other, 
and start to-morrow morning for the great Sahara Desert, 
until the simoom shall sweep seven feet of sand all over 
them, and not one passing caravan for the next five hun- 
dred years bring back one miserable bone of their car- 
casses! Free Loveism! It is the double-distilled extract 



BEAWN AND MUSCLE. 17 

of nux vomica, ratsbane, and adder's tongue. Never un- 
til society goes back to the old Bible, and hears its eulogy 
of purity and its anathema of uncleanness — never until 
then will this evil be extirpated. 

IV. Behold also in this giant of the text and in the 
giant of our own century that great physical power must 
crumble and expire. The Samson of the text long ago 
went away. He fought the lion. He fought the Philis- 
tines. He could fight anything, but death was too much 
for him. He may have required a longer grave and a 
broader grave; but the tomb nevertheless was his ter- 
minus. 

If, then, we are to be compelled to go out of this world, 
where are we to go to? This body and soul must soon 
part. What shall be the destiny of the former I know — 
dust to dust. But what shall be the destiny of the latter? 
Shall it rise into the companionship of the white-robed, 
whose sins Christ has slain? or will it go down among the 
unbelieving, who tried to gain the world and save their 
souls, but were swindled out of both? Blessed be God, we 
have a Champion! He is so styled in the Bible: A 
Champion who has conquered death and hell, and he is 
ready to fight all our battles from the first to the last. 
" Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed gar- 
ments from Bozrah, mighty to save?" If we follow in the 
wake of that Champion death has no power and the grave 
no victory. The worst man trusting in Him shall have 
his dying pangs alleviated and his future illumined. 

V. In the light of this subject I want to call your atten- 
tion to a fact which may not have been rightly considered 



18 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

by five men in this house, and that is the fact that we 
must be brought into judgment for the employment of our 
physical organism. Shoulder, brain, hand, foot — we must 
answer in judgment for the use we have made of them. 
Have they been used for the elevation of society or for its 
depression? In proportion as our arm is strong and our 
step elastic will our account at last be intensified. Thou- 
sands of sermons are preached to invalids. I preach this 
sermon this morning to stout men and healthful women. 
We must give to God an account for the right use of this 
physical organism. 

These invalids have comparatively little to account for, 
perhaps. They could not lift twenty 230unds. They could 
not walk half a mile without sitting down to rest. In the 
preparation of this subject I have said to niyself, how shall 
I account to God in judgment for the use of a body which 
never knew one moment of real sickness? Eising up in 
judgment, standing beside the men and women who had 
only little physical energy, and yet consumed that energy 
in a conflagration of religious enthusiasm, how will we feel 
abashed! 

Oh, men of the strong arm and the stout heart, what 
use are you making of your physical forces? Will you be 
able to stand the test of that day when we must answer for 
the use of every talent, whether it were a physical energy, 
or a mental acumen, or a spiritual power? 

The day approaches, and I see one who in this world 
was an invalid, and as she stands before the throne of God 
to answer she says, " I was sick all my days. I had but 
\ery little strength, but I did as well as I could in being 



BUAWtf AKD MUSCLE. 19 

kind to those who were more sick and more suffering." 
And Christ will say, " Well done, faithful servant." 

And then a little child will stand before the throne, and 
she will say, " On earth I had a curvature of the spine, 
and I was very weak, and I was very sick; but I used to 
gather flowers out of the wild -wood and bring them to my 
sick mother, and she was comforted when she saw the 
sweet flowers out of the wild-wood. I didn't do much, but 
I did something." And Christ shall say, as He takes her 
up in His arm and kisses her, " Well done, well done, 
faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

What, then, will be said to us — we to whom the Lord 
gave physical strength and continuous health? Hark! it 
thunders again. The judgment! the judgment! 

I said to an old Scotch minister, who was one of the best 
friends I ever had, " Doctor, did you ever know Robert 
Pollock, the Scotch poet, who wrote ' The Course of 
Time '?" " Oh, yes," he replied, " I knew him well; I 
was his classmate." And then the doctor went on to tell 
me how that the writing of " The Course of Time " ex- 
hausted the health of Robert Pollock, and he expired. It 
seems as if no man could have such a glimpse of the day 
for which all other days were made as Robert Pollock had, 
and long survive that glimpse. In the description of that 
day he says, among other things: 

" Begin the woe, ye woods, and tell it to the doleful winds 
And doleful winds wail to the howling hills, 
And howling hills mourn to the dismal vales, 
And dismal vales sigh to the sorrowing brooks, 
And sorrowing brooks weep to the weeping stream, 



20 NEW TABEENACLE SEBMONS. 

And weeping stream awake the groaning deep; 
Ye heavens, great archway of the universe, put sack-cloth on ; 
And ocean, robe thyself in garb of widowhood, 
And gather all thy waves into a groan, and utter it. 
Long, loud, deep, piercing, dolorous, immense. 
The occasion asks it, Nature dies, and angels come to lay 
her in her grave." 

What Robert Pollock saw m poetic dream, you and I 
will see in positive reality — the judgment! the judgment! 



THE PLEIADES AND ORION. 



" Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion." — Amos. v. 8 

A couktey farmer wrote this text — Amos of Tekoa. 
He plowed the earth and threshed the grain by a new 
threshing-machine just invented, as formerly the cattle 
trod out the grain. He gathered the fruit of the syca- 
more-tree, and scarified it with an iron comb just before it 
was getting ripe, as it was necessary and customary in that 
way to take from it the bitterness. He was the son of a 
poor shepherd, and stuttered; but before the stammering 
rustic the Philistioes, and Syrians, and Phoenicians, and 
Moabites, and Ammonites, and Edomites, and Israelites 
trembled. 

Moses was a law-giver, Daniel was a prince, Isaiah a 
courtier, and David a king; but Amos, the author of my 
text, was a peasant, and, as might be supposed, nearly all 
his parallelisms are pastoral, his prophecy full of the odor 
of new-mown hay, and the rattle of locusts, and the rum- 
ble of carts with sheaves, and the roar of wild beasts de- 
vouring the flock while the shepherd came out in their 
defense. He watched the herds by day, and by night in- 
habited a booth made out of bushes, so that through these 
branches he could see the stars all night long, and was 
more f aniiliar with them than we who have tight roofs to 

(31) 



21 NEW TABERXACLE SERMOXS. 

our houses, and hardly ever see the stars except among the 
tall brick chimneys of the great towns. But at seasons of 
the year when the herds were in special danger, he would 
stay out in the open field all through the darkness, his only 
shelter the curtain of the night, heaven, with the stellar 
embroideries and silvered tassels of lunar light. 

What a life of solitude, all alone with his herds! Poor 
Amos! And at twelve o'clock at night, hark to the wolf's 
bark, and the lion's roar, and the bear's growl, and the 
owl's te-whit-te-whos, and the serpent's hiss, as he unwit- 
tingly steps too near while moving through the thickets! 
So Amos, like other herdsmen, got the habit of studying 
the map of the heavens, because it was so much of the time 
spread out before him. He noticed some stars advancing 
and others receding. He associated their dawn and setting 
with certain seasons of the year. He had a poetic nature, 
and he read night by night, and month by month, and 
year by year, the poern of the constellations, divinely 
rhythmic. But two rosettes of stars especially attracted 
his attention while seated on the ground, or lying on his 
back under the open scroll of the midnight heavens — the 
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, and Orion. The former group 
this rustic prophet associated with the spring, as it rises 
about the first of May. The latter he associated with the 
winter, as it comes to the meridian in January. The 
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, connected with all sweetness and 
joy: Orion, the herald of the tempest. The ancients were 
the more apt to study the physiognomy and juxtaposition 
of the heavenly bodies, because they thought they had a 
special influence upon the earth: and perhaps they were 



THE PLEIADES AND ORION. 23 

right. If the moon every few hours lifts and lets down 
the tides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the electric storms of 
last year in the sun, by all scientific admission, affected 
the earth, why not the stars have proportionate effect? 

And there are some things which make me think that it 
may not have been all superstition which connected the 
movements and appearance of the heavenly bodies with 
great moral events on earth. Did not a meteor run on 
evangelistic errand on the first Christmas night, and des- 
ignate the rough cradle of our Lord? Did not the stars 
hi their courses fight against Sisera? Was it merely coin- 
cidental that before the destruction of Jerusalem the moon 
was eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely 
happen so that a new star appeared in constellation Cas- 
siopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles IX. 
of France, who was responsible for St. Bartholomew mas- 
sacre, died? Was it without significance that in the days 
of the Eoman Emperor Justinian war and famine were 
preceded by the dimness of the sun, which for nearly a year 
gave no more light than the moon, although there were no 
clouds to obscure it? 

Astrology, after all, may have been something more 
than a brilliant heathenism. Xo wonder that Amos of the 
text, having heard these two anthems of the stars, put 
down the stout rough staff of the herdsman and took into 
his brown hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of a 
prophet, and advised the recreant people of his time to 
return to God, saying: " Seek Him that maketh the Seven 
Stars and Orion." This command, which Amos gave 785 
years B.C., is just as appropriate for us, 1885 A.D. 



24 NEW TABEBXACLE SERMONS. 

In the first place, Amos saw, as we must see, that the 
God who made the Pleiades and Orion must be the God of 
order. It was not so much a star here and a star there 
that impressed the inspired herdsman, but seven in one 
group, and seven in the other group. He saw that night 
after night and season after season and decade after decade 
they had kept step of light, each one in its own place, a 
sisterhood never clashing and never contesting precedence. 
From the time Hesiod called the Pleiades the " seven 
daughters of Atlas " and Virgil wrote in his JEneid of 
" Stormy Orion " until now, they have observed the order 
established for then- coming and going; order written not 
in manuscript that may be pigeon-holed, but with the 
hand of the Almighty on the dome of the sky, so that all 
nations may read it. Order. Persistent order. Sublime 
order. Omnipotent order. 

What a sedative to you and me, to whom communities 
and nations sometimes seem going pell-mell, and world 
ruled by some fiend at hap-hazard, and in all directions 
maladministration! The God who keeps seven worlds in 
right circuit for six thousand years can certainly keej) all 
the affairs of individuals and nations and continents in ad- 
justment. We had not better fret much, for the j^easant's 
argument of the text was right. If God can take care of 
the seven worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief worlds 
of Orion, He can j)robably take care of the one world we 
inhabit. 

So I feel very much as my father felt one day when we 
were going to the country mill to get a grist ground, and 
I, a boy of seven years, sat in the back part of the wagon, 



THE PLEIADES AND ORION. 25 

and our yoke of oxen ran away with us and along a laby- 
rinthine road through the woods, so that I thought every 
moment we would be dashed to pieces, and I made a terri- 
ble outcry of fright, and my father turned to me with a 
face perfectly calm, and said: " De "Witt, what are you 
crying about? I guess we can ride as fast as the oxen can 
run." And, my hearers, why should we be affrighted and 
lose our equilibrium in the swift movement of worldly 
events, especially when we are assured that it is not a yoke 
of unbroken steers that are drawing us on, but that order 
and wise government are in the yoke? 

In your occupation, your mission, your sphere, do the 
best you can, and then trust to God ; and if things are all 
mixed and disquieting, and your brain is hot and your 
heart sick, get some one to go out with you into the star- 
light and point out to you the Pleiades, or, better than 
that, get into some observatory, and through the telescope 
see further than Amos with the naked eye could — namely, 
two hundred stars in the Pleiades, and that in what is 
called the sword of Orion there is a nebula computed to be 
two trillion two hundred thousand billions of times larger 
than the sun. Oh, be at peace with the God who made all 
that and controls all that — the wheel of the constellations 
turning in the wheel of galaxies for thousands of years 
without the breaking of a cog or the slipping of a band or 
the snap of an axle. For your placidity and comfort 
through the Lord Jesus Christ I charge you, " Seek Him 
that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion. " 

Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who 
made these two groups of the text was the God of light. 



2(3 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Amos saw that God was not satisfied with making one star, 
or two or three stars, but He makes seven; and having 
finished that group of worlds, makes another group — 
group after group. To the Pleiades He adds Orion. It 
seems that God likes light so well that He keeps making 
it. Only one being in the universe knows the statistics of 
solar, lunar, stellar, meteoric creations, and that is the 
Creator Himself. And they have all been lovingly christ- 
ened, each one a name as distinct as the names of your 
children. " He telleth the number of the stars; He call- 
eth them all by their names. " The seven Pleiades had 
names given to them, and they are Alcyone, Merope, 
Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia. 

But think of the billions and trillions of daughters of 
starry light that God calls by name as they sweep by Him 
with beaming brow and lustrous robe ! So fond is God of 
light — natural light, moral light, spiritual light. Again 
and again is light harnessed for symbolization — Christ, the 
bright and morning star; evangelization, the da} T break; 
the redemption of nations, Sun of Pighteousness rising 
with healing in His wings. Oh, men and women, with so 
many sorrows and sins and perplexities, if you want light 
of comfort, light of pardon, light of goodness, in earnest, 
pray through Christ, " Seek Him that maketh the Seven 
Stars and Orion. " 

Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who 
made these two archipelagoes of stars must be an un- 
changing God. There had been no change in the stellar 
appearance in this herdsman's life-time, and his father, a 
shepherd, reported to him that there had been no change 



THE PLEIADES A10) OKIOK. 27 

in his life-time. And these two clusters hang over the 
celestial arbor now just as they were the first night that 
they shone on the Edenic bowers, the same as when the 
Egyptians built the Pyramids from the top of which to 
watch them, the same as when the Chaldeans calculated 
the eclipses, the same as when Elihu, according to the 
Book of Job, went out to study the aurora borealis, the 
same under Ptolemaic system and Copernican system, the 
same from Calisthenes to Pythagoras, and from Pythagoras 
to Herschel. Surely, a changeless God must have fash- 
ioned the Pleiades and Orion! Oh, what an anodyne amid 
the ups and downs of life, and the flux and reflux of the 
tides of prosperity, to know that we have a changeless 
God, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." • 

Xerxes garlanded and knighted the steersman of his 
boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of 
the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the 
columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse 
at the presidential inaugural, and in four months so great 
were the antipathies that a ruffian^s pistol in Washington 
depot expressed the sentiment of a great multitude. The 
world sits in its chariot and drives tandem, and the horse 
ahead is Huzza, and the horse behind is Anathema. Lord 
Cobham, in King James' time, was applauded, and had 
thirty-five thousand dollars a year, but was afterward exe- 
crated., and lived on scraps stolen from the royal kitchen. 
Alexander the Great after death remained unburied for 
thirty days, because no one would do the honor of shovel- 
ing him under. The Duke of Wellington refused to have 
his iron fence mended, because it had been broken by an 



28 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMONS. 

infuriated populace in some hour of political excitement, 
and he left it in ruins that men might learn what a fickle 
thing is human favor. " But the mercy of the Lord is 
from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear Him, and 
His righteousness unto the children's children of such as 
keep His covenant, and to those who remember His com- 
mandments to do them." This moment " seek Him that 
maketh the Seven Stars and Orion." 

Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who 
made these two beacons of the Oriental night sky must be 
a God of love and kindly warning. The Pleiades rising in 
mid-sky said to all the herdsmen and shepherds and hus- 
bandmen: " Come out and enjoy the mild weather, and 
cultivate your gardens and fields." Orion, coming in 
winter, warned them to prepare for tempest. All naviga- 
tion was regulated by these two constellations. The one 
said to shipmaster and crew: " Hoist sail for the sea, and 
gather merchandise from other lands." But Orion was 
the storm-signal, and said: " Eeef sail, make things snug, 
or put into harbor, for the hurricanes are getting their 
wings out." As the Pleiades were the sweet evangels of 
the spring, Orion was the warning prophet of the winter. 

Oh, now I get the best view of God I ever had ! There 
are two kinds of sermons I never want to preach — the one 
that presents God so kind, so indulgent, so lenient, so im- 
becile that men may do what they will against Him, and 
fracture His every law, and put the cry of their imperti- 
nence and rebellion under His throne, and while they are 
spitting in His face and stabbing at His heart, He takes 
them up in His arms and kisses their infuriated brow and 



THE PLEIADES AND OKION. 29 

cheek, saying, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." The 
other kind of sermon I never want to preach is the one 
that represents God as all fire and torture and thunder- 
cloud, and with red-hot pitch-fork tossing the human race 
into paroxysms of infinite agony. The sermon that I am , 
now preaching believes in a God of loving, kindly warn- fc 
ing, the God of spring and winter, the God of the Pleiades 
and Orion. 

You must remember that the winter is just as impor- 
tant as the spring. Let one winter pass without frost to 
kill vegetation and ice to bind the rivers and snow to 
enrich our fields, and then you will have to enlarge your 
hospitals and your cemeteries. " A green Christmas 
makes a fat grave-yard," was the old proverb. Storms to 
purify the air. Thermometer at ten degrees above zero to 
tone up the system. December and January just as im- 
portant as May and June. I tell you we need the storms 
of life as much as we do the sunshine. There are more 
men ruined by prosperity than by adversity. If we had 
our own way in life, before this we would have been imper- 
sonations of selfishness and worldliness and disgusting sin, 
and puffed up until we would have been like Julius Caesar, 
who was made by sycophants to believe that he was divine, 
and the freckles on his face were as the stars of the firma- 
ment. 

One of the swiftest transatlantic voyages made last sum- 
mer by the "Etruria" was because she had a stormy 
wind abaft, chasing her from New York to Liverpool. 
But to those going in the opposite direction the storm was 
a buffeting and a hinderance. It is a bad thing to have a 



30 KEW TABEEXACLi: SEEjIOXS. 

storm ahead, pushing us back; but if we he God's children 
and aiming toward heaven, the storms of life will only 
chase us the sooner into the harbor. I am so glad to be- 
lieve that the. monsoons, and typhoons, and mistrals, and 
siroccos of the land and sea are not unchained maniacs let 
loose upon the earth, but are under divine supervision! I 
am so glad that the God of the Seven Stars is also the God 
of Orion! It was out of Dante's suffering came the sub- 
lime " Divina Comniedia," and out of John Alllton's 
blindness came " Paradise Lost," and out of miserable 
infidel attack came the " Bridgewater Treatise" in* favor 
of Christianity, and out of David's exile came the songs of 
consolation, and out of the sufferings of Christ came the 
possibility of the world's redenrption, and out of your be- 
reavement, your persecution, your poverties, your mis- 
fortunes, may yet come an eternal heaven. 

Oh, what a mercy it is that in the text and all up and 
down the Bible God induces us to look out toward other 
worlds! Bible astronomy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in 
the Psalms, in the prophets, major and minor, in St. 
John's Apocalypse, practically saying, " "Worlds! worlds! 
worlds! Get ready for them!" "We have a nice little 
world here that we stick to, as though losing that we lose 
all. We are afraid of falling off this little raft of a world. 
W^e are afraid that some meteoric iconoclast will some 
night smash it, and we want everything to revolve around 
it, and are disappointed when we find that it revolves 
around the sun instead of the sun revolving around it. 
What a fuss we make about this little bit of a world, its 
existence only a short time between two spasms, the par- 



THE PLEIADES AND OttlOtf. 31 

oxysm by which it was hurled from chaos into order, and 
the paroxysm of its demolition. 

And I am glad that so many texts call us to look off to 
other worlds, many of them larger and grander and more 
resplendent. "Look there/' says Job, "at Mazaroth 
and Arcturus and his sons!" " Look there/' says St. 
John, " at the moon under Christ's feet!" " Look 
there/' says Joshua, " at the sun standing still above 
Gibeon!" " Look there," says Moses, " at the sparkling 
firmament!" " Look there," says Amos, the herdsman, 
" at the Seven Stars and Orion!" Don't let us be so sad 
about those who shove off from this world under Christly 
pilotage. Don't let us be so agitated about our own going 
off this little barge or sloop or canal-boat of a world to get 
on some " Great Eastern " of the heavens. Don't let us per- 
sist in wanting to stay in this barn, this shed, this out- 
house of a world, when all the King's palaces already 
occupied by many of our best friends are swinging wide 
open their gates to let us in. 

When I read, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions," I do not know but that each world is a room, and 
as many rooms as there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar 
galleries, stellar hallways, stellar windows, stellar domes. 
How our departed friends must pity us shut up in these 
cramped apartments, tired if we walk fifteen miles, when 
they some morning, by one stroke of wing, can make cir- 
cuit of the whole stellar system and be back in time for 
matins! Perhaps yonder twinkling constellation is the 
residence of the martyrs; that group of twelve luminaries 
is the celestial home of the Apostles. Perhaps that steep 



32 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMOKS. 

of light is the dwelling-place of angels cherubic, seraphic, 
archangelic. A mansion with as many rooms as worlds, 
and all their windows illuminated for festivity. 

Oh, how this widens and lifts and stimulates our ex- 
pectation! How little it makes the present, and how 
stupendous it makes the future! How it consoles us 
about our pious dead, that instead of being boxed up and 
under the ground have the range of as many rooms as 
there are worlds, and welcome everywhere, for it is the 
Father's house, in which there are many mansions! Oh, 
Lord God of the Seven Stars and Orion, how can I endure 
the transport, the ecstasy, of such a vision! I must obey 
my text and seek Him. I will seek Him. I seek Him 
now, for I call to mind that it is not the material universe 
that is most valuable, but the spiritual, and that each of 
us has a soul worth more than all the worlds which the in- 
spired herdsman saw from his booth on the hills of Tekoa. 

I had studied it before, but the Cathedral of Cologne, 
Germany, never impressed me as it did this summer. It 
is admittedly the grandest Gothic structure in the world, 
its foundation laid in 1248, only two or three years ago 
completed. More than six hundred years in building. All 
Europe taxed for its construction. Its chapel of the Magi 
with precious stones enough to purchase a kingdom. Its 
chapel of St. Agnes with masterpieces of painting. Its 
spire springing five hundred and eleven feet into the 
heavens. Its stained glass the chorus of all rich colors. 
Statues encircling the pillars and encircling all. Statues 
above statues, until sculpture can do no more, but faints 
and falls back against carved stalls and down on pave- 



THE PLEIADES AXD OKIOX. 33 

ments over which the kings and queens of the earth have 
walked to confession. Xave and aisles and transept and 
portals combining the splendors of sunrise. Interlaced, 
interfoliated, intercolumned grandeur. As I stood out- 
side, looking at the double range of flying buttresses and 
the forest of pinnacles, higher and higher and higher, until 
I almost reeled from dizziness, I exclaimed;'" Great dox- 
ology in stone! Frozen prayer of many nations!" 

But while standing there I saw a poor man enter and 
put down his pack and kneel beside his burden on the hard 
floor of that cathedral. And tears of deep emotion came 
into my eyes, as I said to myself: " There is a soul worth 
more than all the material surroundings. That man will 
live after the last pinnacle has fallen, and not one stone of 
all that cathedral glory shall remain uncrumbled. He is 
now a Lazarus in rags and poverty and weariness, but im- 
mortal, and a son of the Lord God Almighty; and the 
prayer he now offers, though amid many superstitions, I 
believe God will hear; and among the Apostles whose 
sculptured forms stand in the surrounding niches he will 
at last be lifted, and into the presence of that Christ whose 
sufferings are represented by the crucifix before which he 
bows; and be raised in due time out of all his poverties 
into the glorious home built for him and built for us by 
* Him who maketh the Seven Stars and Orion." " 



THE QUEEN'S VISIT. 



"Behold, the half was not told me." — i Kings x: 7. 

Solomon had resolved that Jerusalem should be. the 
center of all sacred, regal, and commercial magnificence. 
He set himself to work, and monopolized the surrounding 
desert as a highway for his caravans. He built the city of 
Palmyra around one of the principal wells of the East, so 
that all the long trains of merchandise from the East were 
obliged to stop there, pay toll, and leave part of their 
wealth in the hands of Solomon" s merchants. He manned 
the fortress Thapsacus at the chief ford of the Euphrates, 
and put under guard everything that passed there. The 
three great products of Palestine — wine pressed from the 
richest clusters and celebrated all the world over; oil which 
in that hot country is the entire substitute for butter and 
lard, and was pressed from the olive branches until every 
tree in the country became an oil well; and honey which 
vv^as the entire substitute for sugar — these three great 
23roducts of the country Solomon exported, and received in 
return fruits and precious woods and the animals of every 
clime. 

He went down to Ezion-geber and ordered a fleet of 
ships to be constructed, oversaw the workmen, and 



THE QUEEN'S VISIT. 35 

watched the launching of the flotilla winch was to go out 
on more than a year's voyage, to bring home the wealth of 
the then known world. He heard that the Egyptian 
horses were large and swift, and long-maned and round- 
limbed, and he resolved to purchase them, giving eighty- 
five dollars apiece for them, putting the best of these 
horses in his own stall, and selling the surplus to foreign 
potentates at great profit. 

He heard that there was the best of timber on Mount 
Lebanon, and he sent out one hundred and eighty thou- 
sand men to hew down the forest and drag the timber 
through the mountain gorges, to construct it into rafts to 
be floated to Joppa, and from thence to be drawn by ox- 
teams twenty-five miles across the land to Jerusalem. He 
heard that there were beautiful flowers in other lands. He 
sent for them, planted them in his own gardens, and to 
this very day there are flowers found in the ruins of that 
city such as are to be found in no other part of Palestine, 
the lineal descendants of the very flowers that Solomon 
planted. He heard that in foreign groves there were birds 
of richest voice and most luxuriant wing. He sent out 
people to catch them and bring them there, and he put 
them into his cages. 

Stand back now and see this long train of camels com- 
ing up to the king's gate, and the ox- trains from Egypt, 
gold and silver and precious stones, and beasts of every 
hoof, and birds of every wing, and fish of every scale! 
See the peacocks strut under the cedars, and the horsemen 
run, and the chariots wheel! Hark to the orchestra! 
Gaze upon the dance! Xot stopping to look into the 



oG NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

wonders of the temple, step right on to the causeway, and 
pass up to Solomon' s palace! 

Here we find ourselves amid a collection of buildings on 
which the king had lavished the wealth of many empires. 
The genius of Hiram, the architect, and of the other 
artists is here seen in the long line of corridors and the 
suspended gallery and the approach to the throne. 
Traceried window opposite traceried window. Bronzed 
ornaments bursting into lotus and lily and pomegranate. 
Chapiters surrounded by network of leaves in which imita- 
tion fruit seemed suspended as in hanging baskets. Three 
branches — so Josephus tells us — three branches sculptured 
on the marble, so thin and subtle that even the leaves 
seemed to quiver. A laver capable of holding five hun- 
dred barrels of water on six hundred brazen ox-heads, 
which gushed with water and filled the whole place with 
coolness and crystalline brightness and musical plash. 
Ten tables chased with chariot wheel and lion and cherub- 
im. Solomon sat on a throne of ivory. At the seating 
place of the throne, on each end of the steps, a brazen lion. 
Why, my friends, in that place they trimmed their candles 
with snuffers of gold, and they cut their fruits with knives 
of gold, and they washed their faces in basins of gold, and 
they scooped out the ashes with shovels of gold, and they 
stirred the altar fires with tongs of gold. Gold reflected 
in the water! Gold flashing from the apparel! Gold blaz- 
ing in the crown! Gold, gold, gold! 

Of course the news of the affluence of that place went 
out everywhere by every caravan and by wing of every ship, 
until soon the streets of Jerusalem are crowded with cu- 



the queen's visit. 37 

riosity seekers. What is that long procession approaching 
Jerusalem? I think from the pomp of it there must be 
royalty in the train. I smell the breath of the spices 
which are brought as presents, and I hear the shout of the 
drivers, and I see the dust-covered caravan showing that 
they come from far away. Cry the news up to the palace. 
The Queen of Sheba advances. Let all the people come 
out to see. Let the mighty men of the land come out on 
the palace corridors. Let Solomon come down the stairs 
of the palace before the queen has alighted. Shake out 
the cinnamon, and the saffron, and the calamus, and the 
frankincense, and pass it into the treasure house. Take 
up the diamonds until they glitter in the sun. 

The Queen of Sheba alights. She enters the palace. 
She washes at the bath. She sits down at the banquet. 
The cup-bearers bow. The meat smokes. The music 
trembles in the dash of the waters from the molten sea. 
Then she rises from the banquet, and walks through the 
conservatories, and gazes on the architecture, and she asks 
Solomon many strange questions, and she learns about the 
religion of the Hebrews, and she then and there becomes a 
servant of the Lord God. 

She is overwhelmed. She begins to think that all the 
spices she brought, and all the precious woods which are 
intended to be turned into harps and psalteries and into 
railings for the causeway between the temple and the 
palace, and the one hundred and eighty thousand dollars 
in money — she begins to think that all these presents 
amount to nothing in such a place, and she is almost 
ashamed that she has brought them, and she says within 



38 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

herself: " I heard a great deal about this place, and about 
this wonderful religion of the Hebrews, but I find it far 
beyond my highest anticipations. I must add more than 
fifty per cent, to what has been related. It exceeds every- 
thing that I could have expected. The half — the half was 
not told me." 

Learn from this subject what a beautiful thing it is 
when social position and wealth surrender themselves to 
God. When religion comes to a neighborhood, the first to 
receive it are the women. Some men say it is because 
they are weak-minded. I say it is because they have 
quicker perception of what is right, more ardent affection 
and capacity for sublimer emotion. After the women 
have received the Gospel then all the distressed and the 
poor of both sexes, those who have no friends, accept 
Jesus. Last of all come the people of affluence and high 
social position. Alas, that it is so! 

If there are those here to-day who have been favored of 
fortune, or, as I might better put it, favored of God, sur- 
render all you have and all you expect to be to the Lord 
who blessed this Queen of Sheba. Certainly you are not 
ashamed to be found in this queen's company. I am glad 
that Christ has had His imperial friends in all ages — Eliza- 
beth Christina, Queen of Prussia; Maria Eeodorovna, 
Queen of Russia; Marie, Empress of Erance; Helena, the 
imperial mother of Constantine; Arcadia, from her great 
fortunes building public baths in Constantinople and toil- 
ing for the alleviation of the masses; Queen Clotilda, lead- 
ing her husband and three thousand of his armed warriors 
to Christian baptism ; Elizabeth of Burgundy, giving her 



THE QUEEN'S VISIT. 39 

jeweled glove to a beggar, and scattering great fortunes 
among the distressed; Prince Albert, singing " Rock of 
Ages " in Windsor Castle, and Queen Victoria, incognita, 
reading the Scriptures to a dying pauper. 

I bless God that the day is coming when royalty will 
bring all its thrones, and music all its harmonies, and paint- 
ing all its pictures, and sculpture all its statuary, and 
architecture all its pillars, and conquest all its scepters; 
and the queens of the earth, in long line of advance, 
frankincense filling the air and the camels laden with gold, 
shall approach Jerusalem, and the gates shall be hoisted, 
and the great burden of splendor shall be lifted into the 
palace of this greater than Solomon. 

Again, my subject teaches me what is earnestness in the 
search of truth. Do you know where Sheba was? It was 
in Abyssinia, or some say in the southern part of Arabia 
Felix. In either case it was a great way off from Jeru- 
salem. To get from there to Jerusalem she had to cross 
a country infested with bandits, and go across blistering 
deserts. Why did not the Queen of Sheba stay at home 
and send a committee to inquire about this new religion, 
and have the delegates report in regard to that religion 
and wealth of King Solomon? She wanted to see for her- 
self, and hear for herself. She could not do this by work 
of committee. She felt she had a soul worth ten thousand 
kingdoms like Sheba, and she wanted a robe richer than 
any woven by Oriental shuttles, and she wanted a crown 
set with the jewels of eternity. Bring out the camels. 
Put on the spices. Gather up the jewels of the throne and 
put them on the caravan. Start now; no time to be lost. 



40 NEW TABERNACLE SEKMOtfS. 

Goad on the camels. TVhen I see that caravan, dust- 
covered, weary, and exhausted, trudging on across the 
desert and among the bandits until it reaches Jerusalem, I 
say: " There is an earnest seeker after the truth." 

But there are a great many of you, my friends, who do 
not act in that way. You all want to get the truth, but 
you want the truth to come to you: you do not want to go 
to it. There are people who fold their arms and say: 
" I am ready to become a Christian at any time: if I am 
2 Bayed I shall be saved, and if I am to be lost I shall 
be lost.'"' A man who says that and keeps on saying it, 
will be lost. Jerusalem will never come to you; you must 
go to Jerusalem. The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ 
will not come to you: you must go and get religion. 
Bring out the camels: put on all the sweet spices, all the 
-ores of the heart's affection. Start for the throne. 
Go in and hear the waters of salvation dashing in fount- 
ains all around about the throne. Sit down at the ban- 
quet — the wine pressed from the grapes of the heavenly 
EschoL, the angels of God the cup-bearers. Goad on the 
camels: Jerusalem will never come to you: you must go 
to Jerusalem. The Bible declares it: " The Queen of 
the South " — that is. this very woman I am speaking of — 
" the Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment against 
this generation and condemn it: for she came from the 
uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solo- 
mon: and, behold! a greater than Solomon is here." God 
help me to break up the infatuation of those people who 
are sitting down in idleness ejecting to be saved. 
" Strive to enter in at the strait £ate. Ask. and it shall 



THE QUEERS VISIT. 41 

be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall 
be opened to you." Take the Kingdom of Heaven by 
violence. Urge on the camels! 

Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that re- 
ligion is a surprise to any one that gets it. This story of 
the new religion in Jerusalem, and of the glory of King 
Solomon, who was a type of Christ — that story rolls on 
and on, and is told by every traveler coming back from 
Jerusalem. The news goes on the wing of every ship and 
with every caravan, and you know a story enlarges as it is 
retold, and by the time that story gets down into the 
southern part of Arabia Felix, and the Queen of Sheba 
hears it, it must be a tremendous story. And yet this 
queen declares in regard to it, although she had heard so 
much and had her anticipations raised so high, the half — 
the half was not told her. 

So religion is always a surprise to any one that gets it. 
The story of grace — an old story. Apostles preached it 
with rattle of chain; martyrs declared it with arm of fire; 
death-beds have affirmed it with visions of glory, and 
ministers of religion have sounded it through the lanes, 
and the highways, and the chapels, and the cathedrals. It 
has been cut into stone with chisel, and spread on the can- 
vas with pencil; and it has been recited in the doxology of 
great congregations. And yet when a man first comes to 
look on the palace of God's mercy, and to see the royalty of 
Christ, and the wealth of this banquet, and the luxuriance 
of His attendants, and the loveliness of His face, and the 
joy of His service, he exclaims with prayers, with tears, with 
sighs, with triumphs : ' ' The half — the half was not told me \" 



42 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

I appeal to those in this house who are Christians. 
Compare the idea you had of the joy of the Christian life 
before you became a Christian with the aiypreciation of 
that joy you have now since you have become a Christian, 
and you are willing to attest before angels and men that 
you never in the days of your spiritual bondage had any 
appreciation of what was to come. You are ready to-day 
to answer, and if I gave you an opportunity in the midst 
of this assemblage, you would speak out and say in regard 
to the discoveries you have made of the mercy and the 
grace and the goodness of God: " The half — the half was 
not told me!" 

Well, we hear a great deal about the good time that is 
coming to this world, when it is to be girded with salva- 
tion. Holiness on the bells of the horses. The lion's 
mane patted by the hand of a babe. Ships of Tarshish 
bringing cargoes for Jesus, and the hard, dry, barren, 
winter-bleached, storm-scarred, thunder-split rock break- 
ing into floods of bright water. Deserts into which drome- 
daries thrust their nostrils, because they were afraid of the 
simoom — deserts blooming into carnation roses and silver- 
tipped lilies. 

It is the old story. Everybody tells it. Isaiah told it, 
John told it, Paul told it, Ezekiel told it, Luther told it, 
Calvin told it, John Milton told it — everybody tells it; and 
yet — and yet when the midnight shall fly the hills, and 
Christ shall marshal His great army? and China, dashing 
her idols into the dust, shall hear the voice of God and 
wheel into hue; and India, destroying her Juggernaut and 
snatching uj3 her little children from the Ganges, shall 



THE queen's visit. 43 

hear the voice of God and wheel into line; and vine-covered 
Italy, and wheat-crowned Russia, and all the nations of 
the earth shall hear the voice of God and fall into line; 
then the Church, which has been toiling and struggling 
through the centuries, robed and garlanded like a bride 
adorned for her husband, shall put aside her veil and look 
up into the face of her Lord the King, and say: " The 
half — the half was not told me!" 

Well, there is coming a greater surprise to every Chris- 
tian — a greater surprise than anything I have depicted. 
Heaven is an old story. Everybody talks about it. There 
is hardly a hymn in the hymn-book that does not refer to 
it. Children read about it in their Sabbath-school book. 
Aged men put on their spectacles to study it. We say it is 
a harbor from the storm. We call it our home. We say 
it is the house of many mansions. We weave together all 
sweet, beautiful, delicate, exhilarant words; we weave 
them into letters, and then we spell it out in rose and lily 
and amaranth. And yet that place is going to be a sur- 
prise to the most intelligent Christian. Like the Queen 
of Sheba, the report has come to us from the far country, 
and many of us have started. It is a desert march, but we 
urge on the camels. What though our feet be blistered 
with the way? We are hastening to the palace. We take 
all our loves and hopes and Christian ambitions, as frank- 
incense and myrrh and cassia, to the great King. We 
must not rest. We must not halt. The night is coming 
on, and it is not safe out here in the desert. Urge on the 
camels. I see the domes against the sky, and the houses 
of Lebanon, and the temples and the gardens. See the 



44 NEW TABERNACLE SEKMONS. 

fountains dance in the sun, and the gates flash as they 
open to let in the poor pilgrims. 

Send the word up to the palace that we are coming, and 
that we are weary of the march of the desert. The King 
will come out and say: " Welcome to the palace; bathe 
in these waters, recline on these banks. Take this cinna- 
mon and frankincense and myrrh and put it upon a censer 
and swing it before the altar. " And yet, my friends, 
when heaven bursts upon us it will be a greater surprise 
than that — Jesus on the throne, and we made like Him! 
All our Christian friends surrounding us in glory! All 
our sorrows and tears and sins gone by forever! The 
thousands of thousands, the one hundred and forty-and- 
four thousand, the great multitudes that no man can num- 
ber, will cry, world without end: " The half — the half 
was not told us!" 



VICARIOUS SUFFERING. 



" Without shedding of blood is no remission." — Heb. ix: 22. 

John G. Whittier, the last of the great school of 
American poets that made the last quarter of a century 
brilliant, asked me in the White Mountains, one morning 
after prayers, in which I had given out Cowper's famous 
hymn about " The Fountain Filled with Blood/' '" Do 
you really believe there is a literal application of the blood 
of Christ to the soul?" My negative reply then is my 
negative reply now. The Bible statement agrees with all 
physicians, and all physiologists, and all scientists, in say- 
ing that the blood is the life, and in the Christian religion 
it means simply that Christ's life was given for our life. 
Hence all this talk of men who say the Bible story of blood 
is disgusting, and that they don't want what they call a 
" slaughter-house religion," only shows their incapacity or 
unwillingness to look through the figure of speech toward 
the thing signified. The blood that, on the darkest Fri- 
day the world ever saw, oozed, or trickled, or poured from 
the brow, and the side, and the hands, and the feet of the 
illustrious sufferer, back of Jerusalem, in a few hours 
coagulated and dried up, and forever disappeared; and if 
man had depended on the application of the literal blood 



40 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

of Christ, there would not have been a soul saved for the 
last eighteen centuries. 

In order to understand this red word of my text, we 
only have to exercise as much common sense in religion as 
we do in everything else. Pang for pang, hunger for 
hunger, fatigue for fatigue, tear for tear, blood for blood, 
life for life, we see every day illustrated. The act of sub- 
stitution is no novelty, although I hear men talk as though 
the idea of Christ' s suffering substituted for our suffering 
were something abnormal, something distressingly odd, 
something wildly eccentric, a solitary episode in the 
world's history; when I could take you out into this city, 
and before sundown point you to five hundred cases of 
substitution and voluntary suffering of one in behalf of 
another. 

At two o'clock to-morrow afternoon go among the places 
of business or toil. It will be no difficult thing for you to 
find men who, by their looks, show you that they are over- 
worked. They are prematurely old. They are hastening 
rapidly toward their decease. They have gone through 
crises in business that shattered their nervous system, and 
pulled on the brain. They have a shortness of breath, 
and a pain in the back of the head, and at night an in- 
somnia that alarms them. Why are they drudging at 
business early aud late? For fun? No; it would be diffi- 
cult to extract any amusement out of that exhaustion. 
Because they are avaricious? In many cases no. Because 
their own personal expenses are lavish? ~No; a few hun- 
dred dollars would meet all their wants. The simple fact 
is, the man is enduring all that fatigue and exasperation, 



YICAKIOUS SUFFERING. 47 

and wear and tear, to keep his home prosperous. There is 
an invisible line reaching from that store, from that bank, 
from that shop, from that scaffolding, to a quiet scene a 
few blocks, a few miles away, and there is the secret of 
that business endurance. He is simply the champion of a 
homestead, for which he wins bread, and wardrobe, and 
education, and prosperity, and in such battle ten thousand 
men fall. Of ten business men whom I bury, nine die of 
overwork for others. Some sudden disease finds them 
with no power of resistance, and they are gone. Life for 
life. Blood for blood. Substitution! 

At one o' clock to-morrow morning, the hour when slum- 
ber is most uninterrupted and most profound, walk amid 
the dwelling-houses of the city. Here and there you will 
find a dim light, because it is the household custom to 
keep a subdued light burning: but most of the houses 
from base to top are as dark as though uninhabited. A 
merciful God has sent forth the archangel of sleep, and he 
puts his wings over the city. But yonder is a clear light 
burning, and outside on the window casement a glass or 
pitcher containing food for a sick child; the food is set in 
the fresh air. This is the sixth night that mother has sat 
up with that sufferer. She has to the last point obeyed 
the physician's prescription, not giving a drop too much 
or too little, or a moment too soon or too late. She is very 
anxious, for she has buried three children with the same 
disease, and she prays and weeps, each prayer and sob end- 
ing with a kiss of the pale cheek. By dint of kindness she 
gets the little one through the ordeal. After it is all over, 
the mother is taken down. Brain or nervous fever sets in, 



■48 NEW TABEKNACLE SEEMOSTS. 

and one day she leaves the convalescent child with a 
mother's blessing, and goes up to join the three in the 
kingdom of heaven. Life for life. Substitution! The 
fact is that there are an uncounted number of mothers 
who, after they have navigated a large family of children 
through all the diseases of infancy, and got them fairly 
started up the flowering slope of boyhood and girlhood, 
have only strength enough left to die. They fade away. 
Some call it consumption; some call it nervous prostra- 
tion; some call it intermittent or malarial disposition; but 
I call it martyrdom of the domestic circle. Life for life. 
Blood for blood. Substitution ! 

Or perhaps the mother lingers long enough to see a son 
get on the wrong road, and his former kindness becomes 
rough reply when she expresses anxiety about him. But 
she goes right on, looking carefully after his apparel, re- 
membering his every birthday with some memento, and 
when he is brought home worn out with dissipation, nurses 
him till he gets well and starts him again, and hopes, and 
expects, and prays, and counsels, and surfers, until her 
strength gives out and she fails. She is going, and attend- 
ants, bending over her pillow, ask her if she has any mes- 
sage to leave, and she makes great effort to say something, 
but out of three or four minutes of indistinct utterance 
they can catch but three words: " My poor boy V The sim- 
ple fact is she died for him. Life for life. Substitution! 

About twenty -four years ago there went forth from our 
homes hundreds of thousands of men to do battle for their 
country. All the poetry of war soon vanished, and left 
them nothing but the terrible prose. They waded knee- 



VICARIOUS SUFFERING. 49 

deep in mud. They slept in snow-banks. They marched 
till their cut feet tracked the earth. They were swindled 
out of their honest rations, and lived on meat not fit for a 
dog. They had jaws all fractured, and eyes extinguished, 
and limbs shot away. Thousands of them cried for water 
as they lay dying on the field the night after the battle, 
and got it not. They were homesick, and received no 
message from their loved ones. They died in barns, in 
bushes, in ditches, the buzzards of the summer heat the 
only attendants on their obsequies. No one but the in- 
finite God who knows everything, knows the ten thou- 
sandth part of the length, and breadth, and depth, and 
height of anguish of the Northern and Southern battle- 
fields. Why did these fathers leave their children and go 
to the front, and why did these young men, postponing the 
marriage-day, start out into the probabilities of never com- 
ing back? For the country they died. Life for life. 
Blood for blood. Substitution! 

But we need not go so far. What is that monument in 
Greenwood? It is to the doctors who fell in the Southern 
epidemics. Why go? Were there not enough sick to be 
attended in these Northern latitudes? Oh, yes; but the 
doctor puts a few medical books in his valise, and some 
vials of medicine, and leaves his patients here in the hands 
of other physicians, and takes the rail-train. Before he 
gets to the infected regions he passes crowded rail-trains, 
regular and extra, taking the flying and affrighted popula- 
tions. He arrives in a city over which a great horror is 
brooding. He goes from couch to couch, feeling of pulse 
and studying symptoms, and prescribing day after day, 



50 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

night after night, until a fellow-physician says: " Doctor, 
you had better go home and rest; you look miserable." 
But he can not rest while so many are suffering. On and 
on, until some morning finds him in a delirium, in which 
he talks of home, and then rises and says he must go and 
look after those patients. He is told to lie down; but he 
fights his attendants until he falls back, and is weaker and 
weaker, and dies for people with whom he had no kinship, 
and far away from his own family, and is hastily put away 
in a stranger's tomb, and only the fifth part of a news- 
paper line tells us of his sacrifice — his name just men- 
tioned among five. Yet he has touched the furthest 
height of sublimity in that three weeks of humanitarian 
service. He goes straight as an arrow to the bosom of 
Him who said: " I was sick and ye visited Me." Life for 
life. Blood for blood. Substitution ! 

In the legal profession I see the same principle of self- 
sacrifice. In 1846, William Freeman, a pauperized and 
idiotic negro, was at Auburn, N. Y. , on trial for murder. 
He had slain the entire Van Nest family. The foaming 
wrath of the community could be kept off him only by 
armed constables. Who would volunteer to be his coun- 
sel? No attorney wanted to sacrifice his popularity by 
such an ungrateful task. All were silent save one, a 
young lawyer with feeble voice, that could hardly be heard 
outside the bar, pale and thin and awkward. It was Will- 
iam H. Seward, who saw that the prisoner was idiotic and 
irresponsible, and ought to be put in an asylum rather 
than put to death, the heroic counsel uttering these beau- 
tiful words; 



VICARIOUS SUFFERING. 51 

' ' I speak now in the hearing of a people who have pre- 
judged prisoner and condemned me for pleading in his 
behalf. He is a convict, a pauper, a negro, without intel- 
lect, sense, or emotion. My child with an affectionate 
smile disarms my care-worn face of its frown whenever I 
cross my threshold. The beggar in the street obliges me 
to give because he says, ' God bless you!' as I pass. My 
dog caresses me with fondness if I will but smile on him. 
My horse recognizes me when I fill his manger. What 
reward, what gratitude, what sympathy and affection can 
I exjject here? There the prisoner sits. Look at him. 
Look at the assemblage around you. Listen to their ill- 
suppressed censures and their excited fears, and tell me 
where among my neighbors or my fellow-men, where, even 
in his heart, I can expect to find a sentiment, a thought, 
not to say of reward or of acknowledgment, or even of 
recognition? Gentlemen, you may think of this evidence 
what you please, bring in what verdict you can, but I 
asseverate before Heaven and you, that, to the best of my 
knowledge and belief, the prisoner at the bar does not at 
this moment know why it is that my shadow falls on you 
instead of his own." 

The gallows got its victim, but the post-mortem exam- 
ination of the poor creature showed to all the surgeons and 
to all the world that the public were wrong, and William 
H. Seward was right, and that hard, stony step of obloquy 
in the Auburn court-room was the first step of the stairs of 
fame up which he went to the top, or to within one step of 
the top, that last denied him through the treachery of 
American politics. Nothing sublimer was ever seen in an 



52 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMONS. 

American court-room than William H. Seward, without 
reward, standing between the fury of the populace and the 
loathsome imbecile. Substitution! 

In the realm of the fine arts there was as remarkable an 
instance. A brilliant but hypercriticised painter, Joseph 
William Turner, was met by a volley of abuse from all the 
art galleries of Europe. His paintings, which have since 
won the applause of all civilized nations, " The Fifth 
Plague of Egypt," " Fishermen on a Lee Shore in Squally 
Weather," " Calais Pier," " The Sun Rising Through 
Mist," and " Dido Building Carthage," were then targets 
for critics to shoot at. In defense of this outrageously 
abused man, a young author of twenty-four years, just one 
year out of college, came forth with his pen, and wrote the 
ablest and most famous essays on art that the world ever saw, 
or ever will see — John Ruskin's " Modern Painters." For 
seventeen years this author fought the battles of the mal- 
treated artist, and after, in poverty and broken-hearted- 
ness, the painter had died, and the public tried to undo 
their cruelties toward him by giving him a big funeral and 
burial at St. Paul's Cathedral, his old-time friend took out 
of a tin box nineteen thousand pieces of paper containing 
drawings by the old painter, and through many weary and 
uncompensated months assorted and arranged them for 
public observation. People say John Ruskin in his old 
days is cross, misanthropic, and morbid. Whatever he 
may do that he ought not to do, and whatever he may say 
that he ought not to say between now and his death, he 
will leave this world insolvent as far as it has any capacity 
to pay this author's pen for its chivalric and Christian de- 



VICARIOUS SUFFERING. 53 

fense of a poor painter's pencil. John Euskin for "William 
Turner. Blood for blood. Substitution ! 

What an exalting principle this which leads one to suffer 
for another! Nothing so kindles enthusiasm or awakens 
eloquence, or chimes poetic canto, or moves nations. The 
principle is the dominant one in our religion — Christ the 
Martyr, Christ the celestial Hero, Christ the Defender, 
Christ the Substitute. No new principle, for it was as old 
as human nature; but now on a grander, wider, higher, 
deeper, and more world-resounding scale! The shep- 
herd boy as a champion for Israel with a sling toppled the 
giant of Philistine braggadocio in the dust; but here is 
another David who, for all the armies of churches militant 
and triumphant, hurls the Goliath of perdition into defeat, 
the crash of his brazen armor like an ex23losion at Hell 
Gate. Abraham had at God's command agreed to sacri- 
fice his son Isaac, and the same God just in time had pro- 
vided a ram of the thicket as a substitute; but here is 
another Isaac bound to the altar, and no hand arrests the 
sharp edges of laceration and death, and the universe 
shivers and quakes and recoils and groans at the horror. 

All good men have for centuries been trying to tell whom 
this Substitute was like, and every comparison, -inspired 
and uninspired, evangelistic, prophetic, apostolic, and 
human, falls short, for Christ was the Great Unlike. 
Adam a type of Christ, because he came directly from 
God; Noah a type of Christ, because he delivered his own 
family from deluge; Melchisedec a type of Christ, because 
he had no predecessor or successor: JosejDh a type of 
Christ, because he was cast out by his brethren; Moses a 



54 xiw taeelv.v le ?i 

type of Christ, because he was a deliverer from bondage; 
Joshua a type of Christ, because he was a conqueror; Sam- 
son a type of Christ, because of his strength to slay the 
lions and carry off the iron gates of impossibility; Solo- 
mon a type of Christ, in the affluence of his dominion; 
Jonah a type of Christ, because of the stormy sea in which 
he threw himself for the rescue of others: but put together 
Adam and Xoah and Melchisedec and Joseph and Moses 
and Joshua and Samson and Solomon and Jonah, and 
they would not make a fragment of a Christ, a quarter of 
a C ^rist, the half of a Christ, or the millionth part of a 
Christ. 

He forsook a throne and sat down on His own footstool. 
He :aine front the top of glory to the bottom of humilia- 
tion, and changed a circumference seraphic for a circum- 
ference diabolic, Once waited on by angels, now hissed at 
by brigands. FToni afar and high op He came down: 
1 1st meteors swifter than they; by starry thrones, Himself 
more lustrous; past larger worlds to smaller worlds; down 
stairs of firmaments, and from cloud to cloud, and through 
:: -:ops and into the camel's stall, to thrust His shoulder 
under our burdens and take the lances of pain through 
IBs vitals, and wrapped himself in all the agonies which 
we deserve for our misdoings, and stood on the splitting 
decks of a foundering vessel, amid the drenching surf of 
the sea, and passed midnights on the mountains amid wild 
fcs of prey, and stood at the point where all earthly and 
infernal hostilities charged on Him at once with their keen 
sabers — our Substitute! 

When did attorney ever endure so much for a pauper 



VICARIOUS SUFFERING. 5 o 

client, or physician for the patient in the lazaretto, or 
mother for the child in membranous croup, as Christ for 
us, and Christ for you, and Christ for me? Shall any 
man or woman or child in this audience who has ever suf- 
fered for another find it hard to understand this Christly 
suffering for us? Shall those whose sympathies have been 
wrung in behalf of the unfortunate have no appreciation 
of that one moment which was lifted out of all the ages of 
eternity as most conspicuous, when Christ gathered up all 
the sins of those to be redeemed under His one arm, and 
all their sorrows under His other arm, and said: " I will 
atone for these under my right arm, and will heal all those 
under my left arm. Strike me with all thy glittering 
shafts, Eternal Justice! Roll over me with all thy 
surges, ye oceans of sorrow"? And the thunderbolts struck 
Him from above, and the seas of trouble rolled up from 
beneath, hurricane after hurricane, and cyclone after 
cyclone, and then and there in presence of heaven and 
earth and hell, yea, all worlds witnessing, the price, the 
bitter price, the transcendent price, the awful price, the 
glorious price, the infinite price, the eternal price, was paid 
that sets us free. 

That is what Paul means, that is what I mean, that is 
what all those who have ever had their heart changed mean 
by "blood." I glory in this religion of blood! I am 
thrilled as I see the suggestive color in sacramental cup, 
whether it be of burnished silver set on cloth immaculately 
white, or rough-hewn from wood set on table in log-hut 
meeting-house of the wilderness. Now I am thrilled as I 
see the altars of ancient sacrifice crimson with the blood of 



5(3 HEW TABEKKACLE SE11M0K& 

the slain lamb, and Leviticus is to me not so much the Old 
Testament as the New. Now I see why the destroying 
angel passing over Egypt in the night spared all those 
houses that had blood sprinkled on their door-posts. Now 
I know what Isaiah means when he speaks of " one in red 
apparel coming with dyed garments from Bozrah;" and 
whom the Apocalypse means when it describes a heavenly 
chieftain whose " vesture was dipped in blood;" and what 
Peter, the apostle, means when he speaks of the " precious 
blood that cleanseth from all sin;" and what the old, worn- 
out, decrepit missionary Paul means when, in my text, he 
cries, " Without shedding of blood is no remission." By 
that blood you and I will be saved — or never saved at all. 
In all the ages of the world God has not once pardoned a 
single sin except through the Saviour's expiation, and He 
never will. Glory be to God that the hill back of Jerusa- 
lem was the battle-field on which Christ achieved our 
liberty! 

The most exciting and over]i>owering day of last summer 
was the day I spent on the battle-field of Waterloo. Start- 
ing out with- the morning train from Brussels, Belgium, 
we arrived in about an hour on that famous spot. A son 
of one who was in the battle, and who had heard from his 
father a thousand times the whole scene recited, accom- 
panied us over the field. There stood the old Hougomont 
Chateau, the walls dented, and scratched, and broken, and 
shattered by grape-shot and cannon-ball. There is the 
well in which three hundred dying and dead were pitched. 
There is the chaj)el with the head of the infant Christ shot 
off. There are the gates at which, for many hours, En- 



VICARIOUS SUFFEEIXO. 57 

glish and French armies nestled. Yonder were the one 
hundred and sixty guns of the English, and the two 
hundred and fifty guns of the French. Yonder the 
Hanoverian Hussars fled for the woods. Yonder was the 
ravine of Ohain, where the French cavalry, not knowing 
there was a hollow in the ground, rolled over and down, 
troop after troop, tumbling into one awful mass of suffer- 
ing, hoof of kicking horses against brow and breast of cap- 
tains and colonels and private soldiers, the human and the 
beastly groan kept up until, the day after, all was shoveled 
under because of the malodor arising in that hot month of 
June. 

" There/'' said our guide, " the Highland regiments lay 
down on their faces waiting for the moment to spring 
upon the foe. In that orchard twenty-five hundred men 
were cut to pieces. Here stood Wellington with white 
lips, and up that knoll rode Marshal Xey on his sixth 
horse, five having been shot under him. Here the ranks 
of the French broke, and Marshal ISTey, with his boot 
slashed of a sword, and his hat off, and his face covered 
with powder and blood, tried to rally his troops as he 
cried: ' Come and see how a marshal of French dies on 
the battle-field. ' From yonder direction Grouchy was ex- 
pected for the French re-enforcement, but he came not. 
Around those woods Blucher was looked for to re-enforce 
the English, and just in time he came up. Yonder is the 
field where Xapoleon stood, his arm through the reins of 
the horse^s bridle, dazed and insane, trying to go back. " 
Scene of a battle that went on from twenty-five minutes to 
twelve o' clock, on the eighteenth of June, until four 



58 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

o' clock, when the English seemed defeated, and their com- 
mander cried out; "Boys, can you think of giving way? 
Remember old England!" and the tides turned, and at 
eight o' clock in the evening the man of destiny, who was 
called by his troops Old Two Hundred Thousand, turned 
away with broken heart, and the fate of centuries was de- 
cided. 

~No wonder a great mound has been reared there, hun- 
dreds of feet high — a mound at the expense of millions of 
dollars and many years in rising, and on the top is the 
great Belgian lion of bronze, and a grand old Hon it is. 
But our great Waterloo was in Palestine. There came a 
day when all hell rode up, led by Apollyon, and the Cap- 
tain of our salvation confronted them alone. The Rider 
on the white horse of the Aj)Ocalypse going out against the 
black horse cavalry of death, and the battalions of the 
demoniac, and the myrmidons of darkness. From twelve 
o'clock at noon to three o'clock in the afternoon the great- 
est battle of the universe went on. Eternal destinies were 
being decided. All the arrows of hell pierced our Chief- 
tain, and the battle-axes struck Him, until brow and cheek 
and shoulder and hand and foot were incarnadined with 
oozing life; but He fought on until He gave a final stroke 
with sword from Jehovah's buckler, and the commander- 
in-chief of hell and all his forces fell back in everlasting 
ruin, and the victory is ours. And on the mound that 
celebrates the triumph we plant this day two figures, not 
in bronze or iron or sculptured marble, but two figures of 
living light, the Lion of Judah's tribe and the Lamb that 
was slain. 



POSTHUMOUS OPPORTUNITY. 



" If the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the 
place where the tree falleth there it shall be." — Eccles. xi: 3. 

Theke is a hovering hope in the minds of a vast multi- 
tude that there will be an opportunity in the next world to 
correct the mistakes of this; that, if we do make complete 
shipwreck of our earthly life, it will be on a shore up 
which we may walk to a palace; that, as a defendant may 
lose his case in the Circuit Court, and carry it up to the 
Supreme Court or Court of Chancery and get a reversal of 
judgment in his behalf, all the costs being thrown over 
on the other party, so, if we fail in the earthly trial, we 
may in the higher jurisdiction of eternity have the judg- 
ment of the lower court set aside, all the costs remitted, 
and we may be victorious defendants forever. 

My object in this sermon is to show that common sense, 
as well as my text, declares that such an expectation is 
chimerical. You say that the impenitent man, having got 
into the next world and seeing the disaster, will, as a result 
of that disaster, turn, the pain the cause of his reforma- 
tion. But you can find ten thousand instances in this 
world of men who have done wrong and distress overtook 
them suddenly. Did the distress heal them? No; they 
went right on. 

That man was flung of dissipations. " You must stop 

(5y> 



GO NEW TABERKACLE SERMONS. 

drinking," said the doctor, " and quit the fast life you are 
leading, or it will destroy you/' The patient suffers 
paroxysm after paroxysm; but, under skillful medical 
treatment, he begins to sit np, begins to walk about the 
room, begins to go to business. And, lo! he goes back to 
the same grog-shops for his morning dram, and his even 
dram, and the drams between. Flat down again ! Same 
doctor. Same physical anguish. Same medical warn- 
ing. 

Now, the illness is more protracted; the liver is more 
stubborn, the stomach more irritable, and the digestive 
organs are more rebellious. But after awhile he is out 
again, goes back to the same iram-shops, and goes the 
same round of sacrilege against his physical health. 

He sees that his downward course is ruining his house- 
hold, that his life is a perpetual perjury against his mar- 
riage vow, that that broken-hearted woman is so unlike the 
roseate young wife that he married, that her old school- 
mates do not recognize her; that his sons are to be taunted 
for a life-time by the father's drunkenness, that the daugh- 
ters are to pass into life under the scarification of a dis- 
reputable ancestor. He is drinking up their happiness, 
their prospects for this life, and, perhaps, for the life to 
come. Sometimes an appreciation of what he is doing 
comes upon him. His nervous system is all a tangle. 
From crown of head to sole of foot he is one aching, rasp- 
ing, crucifying, damning torture. Where is he? In hell 
on earth. Does it reform him? 

After awhile he has delirium tremens, with a whole jun- 
gle of hissing reptiles let out on his pillow, and his screams 



POSTHUMOUS OPPOKTUNITY. 61 

horrify the neighbors as he clashes out of his bed, crying : 
" Take these things off me!" As he sits, pale and con- 
valescent, the doctor says: " Now I want to have a plain 
talk with you, my dear fellow. The next attack of this 
kind you will have you will be beyond all medical skill, 
and you will die." He gets better and goes forth into the 
same round again. This time medicine takes no effect. 
Consultation of physicians agree in saying there is no hope. 
Death ends the scene. 

That process of inebriation, warning, and dissolution is 
going on within stone's throw of this church, going on in 
all the neighborhoods of Christendom. Pain does not 
correct. Suffering does not reform. What is true in one 
sense is true in all senses, and will forever be so, and yet 
men are expecting in the next world purgatorial re- 
juvenation. Take up the printed reports of the pris- 
ons of the United States, and you will find that the 
vast majority of the incarcerated have been there before, 
some of them four, five, six times. With a million illus- 
trations all working the other way in this world, people are 
expecting that distress in the next state will be salvatory. 
You can not imagine any worse torture in any other world 
than that which some men have suffered here, and with- 
out any salutary consequence. 

Furthermore, the prospect of a reformation in the next 
world is more improbable than a reformation here. In this 
world the life started with innocence of infancy. In the 
case supposed the other life will open with all the accumu- 
lated bad habits of many years upon him. Surely, it is 
easier to build a strong ship oat of new timber than out of 



62 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

an old hulk that has been ground up in the breakers. If 
with innocence to start with in this life a man does not be- 
come godly, what prospect is there that in the next world, 
starting with sin, there would be a seraph evoluted? 
Surely the sculptor has more prospect of making a fine 
statue out of a block of pure white Parian marble than out 
of an old black rock seamed and cracked with the storms 
of a half century. Surely upon a clean, white sheet of 
paper it is easier to write a deed or a will than upon a 
sheet of paper all scribbled and blotted and torn from top 
to bottom. Yet men seem to think that, though the life 
that began here comparatively perfect turned out badly, 
the next life will succeed, though it starts with a dead 
failure. 

" But," says some one, " I think we ought to have a 
chance in the next life, because this life is so short it allows 
only small opportunity. We hardly have time to turn 
around between cradle and tomb, the wood of the one 
almost touching the marble of the other." But do you 
know what made the ancient deluge a necessity? It was 
the longevity of the antediluvians. They were worse in 
the second century of their life-time than in the first hun- 
dred years, and still worse in the third century, and still 
worse all the way on to seven, eight, and nine hundred 
years, and the earth had to be washed, and scrubbed, and 
soaked, and anchored, clear out of sight for more than a 
month before it could be made fit for decent peojjle to live 
in. Longevity never cures impenitency. All the pictures 
of Time represent him with a scythe to cut, but I never 
saw any picture of Time with a case of medicines to heal. 



POSTHUMOUS OPPOKTUNITY. 63 

Seneca says that Nero for the first five years of his public 
life was set up for an example of clemency and kindness, 
but his path all the way descended until at sixty-eight he 
became a suicide. If eight hundred years did not make 
antediluvians any better, but only made them worse, the 
ages of eternity could have no effect except prolongation of 
depravity. 

" But," says some one, " in the future state evil sur- 
roundings will be withdrawn and elevated influences sub- 
stituted, and hence expurgation, and sublimation, and 
glorification." But the righteous, all their sins forgiven, 
have passed on into a beatific state, and consequently the 
unsaved will be left alone. It can not be expected that 
Doctor Duff, who exhausted himself in teaching Hindoos 
the way to heaven, and Doctor Abeel, who gave his life in 
the evangelization of China, and Adoniram Judson, who 
toiled for the redemption of Borneo, should be sent down 
by some celestial missionary society to educate those who 
Avasted all their earthly existence. Evangelistic and mis- 
sionary efforts are ended. The entire kingdom of the 
morally bankrupt by themselves, where are the salvatory 
influences to come from? Can one speckled and bad apple 
in a barrel of diseased apples turn the other apples good? 
Can those who are themselves down help others up? Can 
those who have themselves failed in the business of the soul 
pay the debts of their spiritual insolvents? Can a million 
wrongs make one right? 

Poneropolis was a city where King Philip of Thracia 
put all the bad people of his kingdom. If any man had 
opened a primary school at Poneropolis I do not think the 



61 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

parents from other cities would have sent their children 
there. Instead of amendment in the other world, all the 
associations, now that the good are evolved, will he de- 
generating and down. You would not want to send a 
man to a cholera or yellow fever hospital for his health; 
and the great lazaretto of the next world, containing the 
diseased and plague-struck, will be a poor place for moral 
recovery. If the surroundings in this world were crowded 
of temptation, the surroundings of the next world, after 
the righteous have passed up and on, will be a thousand 
per cent, more crowded of temptation. 

The Count of Chateaubriand made his little son sleep at 
night at the top of a castle turret, where the winds howled 
and where specters were said to haunt the place; and 
while the mother and sisters almost died with fright, the 
son tells us that the process gave him nerves that coidd 
not tremble and a courage that never faltered. But I 
don't think that towers of darkness and the spectral world 
swept by Sirocco and Euroclydon will ever fit one for the 
land of eternal sunshine. I wonder what is the curriculum 
of that college of Inferno, where, after proper preparation 
by the sins of this life, the candidate enters, passing on 
from freshman class of depravity to sophomore of aban- 
donment, and from sophomore to junior, and from junior 
to senior, and day of graduation comes, and with drplonia 
signed by Satan, the president, and other professorial 
demoniacs, attesting that the candidate has been long 
enough under their drill, he passes up to enter heaven! 
Pandemonium a preparative course for heavenly admis- 
sion ! Ah, my friends, Satan and his cohorts have fitted 



POSTHUMOUS OPPORTUNITY. 65 

uncounted multitudes for ruin, but never fitted one soul 
for happiness. 

Furthermore, it would not be safe for this world if men 
had another chance in the next. If it had been announced 
that, however wickedly a man might act in this world, he 
could fix it up all right in the next, society would be terri- 
bly demoralized, and the human race demolished in a few 
years. The fear that, if we are bad and unforgiven here, 
it will not be well for us in the next existence, is the chief 
influence that keeps civilization from rushing back to 
semi-barbarism, and semi-barbarism from rushing into 
midnight savagery, and midnight savagery from extinc- 
tion; for it is the astringent impression of all nations, 
Christian and heathen, that there is no future chance for 
those who have wasted this. 

Multitudes of men who are kept within bounds would 
say, " Go to, now! Let me get all out of this life there is 
in it. Come, gluttony, and inebriation, and uncleanness, 
and revenge, and all sensualities, and wait upon me! My 
life may be somewhat shortened in this world by dissolute- 
ness, but that will only make heavenly indulgence on a 
larger scale the sooner possible. I will overtake the saints 
at last, and will enter the Heavenly Temple only a little 
later than those who behaved themselves here. I will on 
my way to heaven take a little wider excursion than those 
who were on earth pious, and I shall go to heaven via 
Gehenna and via Sheol." Another chance in the next 
world means free license and wild abandonment in this. 

Suppose you were a party in an important case at law, 
and you knew from consultation with judges and attorneys 



bb XEW TABERXACLE SEBMOXS. 

that it would be tried twice, and the first trial would be of 
little importance, but that the second would decide every- 
thing; for which trial would you make the most prejoara- 
tion, for which retam the ablest attorneys, for which be 
most anxious about the attendance of witnesses? You 
would put all the stress upon the second trial, all the anx- 
iety, all the expenditure, saying, " The first is nothing, the 
last is everything. " Give the race assurance of a second 
and more important trial in the subsequent life, and all 
the preparation for eternity would be post-mortem , post- 
funeral, post-sepulchral, and the world with one jerk be 
pitched off into impiety and godlessness. 

Furthermore, let me ask why a chance should be given 
in the next world if we have refused innumerable chances 
in this? Sup}30se you give a banquet, and you invite a 
vast number of friends, but one man declines to come, or 
treats your invitation with indifference. You in the 
course of twenty years give twenty banquets, and the same 
man is invited to them all, and treats them all in the same 
obnoxious way. After awhile you remove to another 
house, larger and better, and you again invite your friends, 
but send no invitation to the man who declined or 
neglected the other invitations. Are you to blame? Has 
he a right to expect to be invited after all the indignities 
he has done you? God in this world has invited us all to 
the banquet of His grace. He invited us by His Provi- 
dence and His Spirit three hundred and sixty-five days of 
every year since we knew our right hand from our left. 
If we declined it every time, or treated the invitation with 
indifference, and gave twenty or forty or fifty years of in- 



POSTHUMOUS OPPORTUNITY. 67 

dignity on our part toward the Banqueter, and at last He 
spreads the banquet in a more luxurious and kingly place, 
amid the heavenly gardens, have we a right to expect Him 
to invite us again, and have we a right to blame Him if 
He does not invite us? 

If twelve gates of salvation stood open twenty years or 
fifty years for our admission, and at the end of that time 
they are closed, can we complain of it and say, " These 
gates ought to be open again. Give us another chance "? 
If the steamer is to sail for Hamburg, and we want to get 
to Germany by that line, and we read in every evening and 
every morning newspajoer that it will sail on a certain day, 
for two weeks we have that advertisement before our eyes, 
and then we go down to the docks fifteen minutes after it 
has shoved off into the stream and say: " Come back. 
Give me another chance. It is not fair to treat me in this 
way. Swing up to the dock again, and throw out j)lanks, 
and let me come on board." Such behavior would invite 
arrest as a madman. 

And if, after the Gospel ship has lain at anchor before 
our eyes for years and years, and all the benign voices of 
earth and heaven have urged us to get on board, as she 
might sail away at any moment, and after awhile she sails 
without us, is it common sense to expect her to come 
back? You might as well go out on the Highlands at 
Never sink and call to the " Aurania" after she has been 
three days out, and expect her to return, as to call back an 
opportunity for heaven when it once has sped away. All 
heaven offered us as a gratuity, and for a life-time we 
refuse to take it, and then rush on the bosses of Jehovah's 



6S NEW TA13EKNACLE SERMONS. 

buckler demanding another chance. There ought to be, 
there can be, there will be no such thing as posthumous 
opportunity. Thus, our common sense agrees with my 
text — " If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the 
north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall 
be." 

You see that this idea lifts this world up from an unim- 
portant way-station to a platform of stupendous issues, 
and makes all eternity whirl around this hour. But one 
trial for which all the preparation must be made in this 
world, or never made at all. That jDiles up all the em- 
phases and all the climaxes and all the destinies into life 
here. No other chance! Oh, how that augments the 
value and the importance of this chance ! 

Alexander with his army used to surround a city, and 
then would lift a great light in token to the people that, if 
they surrendered before that light went out, all would be 
well; but if once the light went out, then the battering- 
rams would swing against the wall, and demolition and 
disaster would follow. Well, all we need do for our pres- 
ent and everlasting safety is to make surrender to Christ, 
the King and Conqueror — surrender of our hearts, sur- 
render of our lives, surrender of everything. And He 
keeps a great light burning, light of Gospel invitation, 
light kindled with the wood of the cross and flaming uj) 
against the dark night of our sin and sorrow. Surrender 
while that great light continues to burn, for after it goes 
out there will be no other opportunity of making peace 
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Talk of an- 
other chance! Why, this is a supernal chance! 



POSTHUMOUS OPPORTUNITY. 09 

In the time of Edward the Sixth, at the battle of Mus- 
selburgh, a private soldier, seeing that the Earl of Hunt- 
ley had lost his helmet, took off his own helmet and put it 
upon the head of the earl; and the head of the private 
soldier uncovered, he was soon slain, while his commander 
rode safely out of the battle. But in our case, instead of 
a private soldier offering helmet to an earl, it is a King 
putting His crown upon an unworthy subject, the King 
dying that we might live. Tell it to all points of the 
compass. Tell it to night and day. Tell it to all earth 
and heaven. Tell it to all centuries, all ages, all millen- 
niums, that we have such a magnificent chance in this 
world that we need no other chance in the next. 

I am in the burnished Judgment Hall of the Last Day. 
A great white throne is lifted, but the Judge has not yet 
taken it. While we are waiting for His arrival I hear im- 
mortal spirits in conversation. " What are you waiting 
here for?" says a soul that went up from Madagascar to a 
soul that ascended from America. The latter says: " I 
came from America, where forty years I heard the Gospel 
preached, and Bible read, and from the prayer that I 
learned in infancy at my mother 5 s knee until my last hour 
I had Gospel advantage, but, for some reason, I did not 
make the Christian choice, and I am here waiting for the 
Judge to give me a new trial and another chance." 
" Strange!" says the other; " I had but one Gospel call 
in Madagascar, and I accepted it, and I do not need an- 
other chance." 

''' Why are you here?" says one who on earth had 
feeblest intellect to one who had great brain, and silvery 



70 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

tongue, and scepters of influence. The latter responds: 
" Oh, I knew more than my fellows. I mastered 
libraries, and had learned titles from colleges, and my 
name was a synonym for eloquence and power. And yet I 
neglected my soul, and I am here waiting for a new trial." 
" Strange," says the one of the feeble earthly capacity; " I 
knew but little of worldly knowledge, but I knew Christ, 
and made Him my partner, and I have no need of another 
chance." 

Now the ground trembles with the approaching chariot. 
The great folding-doors of the Hall swing open. " Stand 
back!" cry the celestial ushers. " Stand back, and let 
the Judge of quick and dead pass through!" He takes 
the throne, and, looking over the throng of nations, He 
says: " Come to judgment, the last judgment, the only 
judgment!" By one flash from the throne all the history 
of each one flames forth to the vision of himself and all 
others. "Divide!" says the Judge to the assembly. 
"Divide!" echo the walls. "Divide!" cry the guards 
angelic. 

And now the immortals separate, rushing this way and 
that, and after awhile there is a great aisle between them, 
and a great vacuum widening and widening, and the 
Judge, turning to the throng on one side, says: " He 
that is righteous, let him be righteous still, and he that is 
holy, let him be holy still;" and then, turning toward the 
throng on the opposite side, He says: " He that is un- 
just, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him 
oe filthy still;" and then, lifting one hand toward each 
group, He declares: " If the tree fall toward the south or 



POSTHUMOUS OPPOItl UNITY. 71 

toward tlie north, in the place where the tree falleth, there 
it shall be." And then I hear something jar with a great 
sound. It is the closing of the Book of Judgment. The 
Judge ascends the stairs behind the throne. The hall of 
the last assize is cleared and shut. The high court of 
eternity is adjourned forever. 



THE LORD'S RAZOR. 



" In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, 
namely, by them beyond the river, by the King of Assyria."— 
Isaiah vii : 20. 

The Bible is the boldest book ever written. There are 
no similitudes in Ossian or the Iliad or the Odyssey so dar- 
ing. Its imagery sometimes seems on the verge of the 
reckless, but only seems so. The fact is that God would 
startle and arouse and propel men and nations. A tame 
and limping similitude would fail to accomplish the object. 
While there are times when He employs in the Bible the 
gentle dew and the morning cloud and the dove and the 
daybreak in the presentation of truth, we often find the 
iron chariot, the lightning, the earthquake, the spray, the 
sword, and, in my text, the razor. 

This keen-bladed instrument has advanced in usefulness 
with the ages. In Bible times and lands the beard re- 
mained uncut save in the seasons of mourning and humil- 
iation, but the razor was always a suggestive symbol. 
David says of Doeg, his antagonist: " Thy tongue is a 
sharp razor working deceitfully;" that is, it pretends to 
clear the face, but is really used for deadly incision. In 
this morning's text the weapon of the toilet appears under 
the following circumstances : Judea needed to have some 

(72) 



the lord's razor. 73 

of its prosperities cut off, and God sends against it three 
Assyrian kings — first Sennacherib, then Esrahaddon, and 
afterward Nebuchadnezzar. These three sharp invasions, 
that cut down the glory of Judea, are compared to 
so many sweeps of the razor across the face of the 
land. And these circumstances were called a hired razor 
because God took the kings of Assyria, with whom He had 
no sympathy, to do the work, and paid them in palaces 
and spoils and annexations. These kings were hired to 
execute the divine behests. And now the text, which on 
its first reading may have seemed trivial or inapt, is 
charged with momentous import: " In the same day shall 
the Lord shave with a razor that is hired — namely, by 
them beyond the river, by the King of Assyria. " 

Well, if God's judgments are razors, we had better be 
careful how we use them on other people. In careful 
sheath these domestic weapons are put away, where no one 
by accident may touch them, and where the hands of 
children may not reach them. Such instruments must be 
carefully handled or not handled at all. But how reck- 
lessly some people wield the judgments of God! If a man 
meet with business misfortune, how many there are ready 
to cry out: " That is a judgment of God upon him be- 
cause he was unscrupulous, or arrogant, or overreaching, 
or miserly. I thought he would get cut down ! What a 
clean sweep of everything! His city house and country 
house gone! His stables emptied of all the fine bays and 
sorrels and grays that used to prance by his door! All his 
resources overthrown, and all that he prided himself on 
tumbled into demolition! Good for him!" Stop, my 



74 NEW TABEKNACLE SERMONS. 

brother. Don't sling around too freely the judgments of 
God, for they are razors. 

Some of the most wicked business men succeed, and 
they live and die in prosperity, and some of the most 
honest and conscientious are driven into bankruptcy. 
Perhaps his manner was unfortunate, and he was not 
really as proud as he looked to be. Some of those who 
carry their head erect and look imperial are humble as a 
child, while many a man in seedy coat and slouch hat and 
unblacked shoes is as proud as Lucifer. You can not tell 
by a man's look. Perhaps he was not unscrupulous in 
business, for there are two sides to every story, and every- 
body that accomplishes anything for himself or others gets 
industriously lied about. Perhaps his business misfortune 
was not a punishment, but the fatherly discipline to pre- 
pare him for heaven, and God may love him far more than 
He loves you, who can pay dollar for dollar, and are put 
down in the commercial catalogues as Al. TVhom the 
Lord loveth He gives four hundred thousand dollars and 
lets die on embroidered pillows? No: whom the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth. Better keep your hand off the 
Lord's razors, lest they cut and wound people that do not 
deserve it. If you want to shave off some of the bristling 
pride of your own heart do so; but be very careful how 
you put the sharp edge on others. 

How I do dislike the behavior of those persons who, 
when people are unfortunate, say: " I told you so — get- 
ting punished — served him right." H those I-told-you- 
so's got their desert they would long ago have been latched 
over the battlements. The mote in their neighbor's eyes 



75 



— so small that it takes a microscope to fir*! it — gives 
them more trouble than the beam which obscures their 
own optics. With air sometimes supercilious and some- 
times Pharisaical, and always blasphemous, they take the 
razor of the divine judgment and sharpen it on the hone of 
their own hard hearts, and then go to work on men 
sprawled out at full length under disaster, cutting merci- 
lessly. They begin by soft expressions of sympathy and 
pity and half praise, and, lather the victim all over before 
they put on the sharp edge. 

Let us be careful how we shoot at others lest we take 
down the wrong one, remembering the servant of King 
William Rufus who shot at a deer, but the arrow glanced 
against a tree and killed the king. Instead of going out 
with shafts to pierce, and razors to cut, we had better imi- 
tate the friend of Richard Coeur de Lion, who, in the war 
of the Crusades, was captured and imprisoned, but none 
of his friends knew where. So his loyal friend went 
around the land from stronghold to stronghold, and sung 
at each window a snatch of song that Richard Coeur de 
Lion had taught him in other days. And one day, com- 
ing before a jail where he suspected his king might be in- 
carcerated, he sung two lines of song, and immediately 
King Richard responded from his cell with the other two 
lines, and so his whereabouts were discovered, and im- 
mediately a successful movement was made for his libera- 
tion. So let us go up and down the world with the music 
of kind words and sympathetic hearts, serenading the un- 
fortunate, and trying to get out of trouble men who had 
noble natures, but, by unforeseen circumstances, have 



76 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

been incarcerated, thus liberating kings. More hymn- 
book and less razor. 

Especially ought we to be apologetic and merciful toward 
those who, while they have great faults, have also great 
virtues. Some people are barren of virtues. No weeds 
verily, but no flowers. I must not be too much enraged 
at a nettle along the fence if it be in a field containing 
forty acres of ripe Michigan wheat. At the present time, 
naturalists tell us, there is on the sun a spot twenty thou- 
sand miles long, but from the brightness and warmth I 
conclude it is a good deal of a sun yet. 

Again, when I read in my text that the Lord shaves 
with the hired razor of Assyria the land of Judea, I be- 
think myself of the precision of God's providence. A 
razor swung the tenth part of an inch out of the right line 
means either failure or laceration, but God's dealings 
never slip, and they do not miss by the thousandth part of 
an inch the right direction. People talk as though things 
in this world were at loose ends. Cholera sweeps across 
Marseilles and Madrid and Palermo, and we watch anx- 
iously. Will the epidemic sweep Europe and America? 
People say, " That will entirely depend on whether inocu- 
lation is a successful experiment; that will depend entirely 
on quarantine regulations; that will depend on the early or 
late appearance of frost; that epidemic is pitched into the 
world, and it goes blundering across the continents, and it 
is all guess-work and an appalling perhaps." 

My friends, I think, perhaps, that God had something 
to do with it, and that His mercy may have in some way 
protected us — that He may have done as much for us as 



THE lord's razor. 77 

the quarantine and the health officers. It was right and a 
necessity that all caution should be used, but there has 
come enough macaroni from Italy, and enough grapes 
from the south of France, and enough rags from tatter- 
demalions, and hidden in these articles of transportation 
enough choleraic germs to have left by this time all 
Brooklyn mourning at Greenwood, and all Philadelphia at 
Laurel Hill, and all Boston at Mount Auburn. I thank 
all the doctors and quarantines; but, more than all, and 
first of all, and last of all, and all the time, I thank God. 
In all the six thousand years of the world's existence there 
has not one thing merely " happened so." God is not an 
anarchist, but a King, a Father. 

When little Tod, the son of President Lincoln, died, all 
the land sympathized with the sorrow in the White House. 
He used to rush into the room where the cabinet was in 
session, and while the most eminent men of the land were 
discussing the questions of national existence. But the 
child had no care about those questions. Now God the 
Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are in 
perpetual session in regard to this world and kindred 
worlds. Shall you, His child, rush in to criticise or 
arraign or condemn the divine government? No; the 
Cabinet of the Eternal Three can govern and will govern 
in the wisest and best way, and there never will be a mis- 
take, and like razor skillfully swung, shall cut that which 
ought to be cut, and avoid that which ought to be avoided. 
Precision to the very hair-breadth. Earthly time-pieces 
may get out of order and strike wrong, saying that it is 
one o'clock when it is two, or two when it is three. God's 



78 XEW TABEBXACLE SEEM0X3. 

clock is always right, and when it is one it strikes one, and 
when it is twelve it strikes twelve, and the second hand is 
as accurate as the minute hand. 

Further, my text tells us that God sometimes shaves 
nations: " In the same day shall the Lord shave with the 
razor that is hired. - "' "With one sharp sweep He went 
across Judea and down went its pride and its power. In 
1861 God shaved our nation. We had allowed to grow 
Sabbath desecration, and oppression, and blasphemy, and 
fraud, and impurity, and all sorts of turpitude. The 
South had its sins, and the Rorth its sins, and the East its 
sins, and the West its sins. We had been warned again 
and again, and we did not heed. At length the sword of 
war cut from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, and from 
Atlantic seaboard to Pacific seaboard. The pride of the 
land, not the cowards, but the heroes, on both sides went 
down. And that which we took for the sword of war was 
the Lord's razor. 

In 1862, again, it went across the land. In 1863 again. 
In 1861 again. Tlien the sharp instrument was incased 
and put away. Never in the history of the ages was any 
land more thoroughly shaved than during those four years 
of civil combat; and, my brethren, if we do not quit some 
of our individual sins, national sins, the Lord will again 
take us in hand. He has other razors within reach besides 
war: epidemics, droughts, deluges, plagues — grasshopper 
and locust; or our overtowering success may so far excite 
the jealousy of other lands that, under some pretext, the 
great nations of Europe and Asia may combine to put us 
down. This nation, so easily approached on north and 



the lord's razor. 79 

south and from both oceans, might have on hand at once 
more hostilities than were ever arrayed against any power. 

We have recently been told by skillful engineers that all 
our fortresses around New York harbor could not keej) the 
shells from being hurled from the sea into the heart of 
these great cities. Insulated China, the wealthiest of all 
nations, as will be realized when her resources are de- 
veloped, will have adopted all the modes of modern war- 
fare, and at the Golden Gate may be discussing whether 
Americans must go. If the combined jealousies of Europe 
and Asia should come upon us, we should have more work 
on hand than would be pleasant. I hope no such combi- 
nation against us will ever be formed, but I want to show 
that, as Assyria was the hired razor against Judea, and 
Cyrus the hired razor against Babylon, and the Huns the 
hired razor against the Goths, there are now many razors 
that the Lord could hire if, because of our national sins, 
He should undertake to shave us. In 1870, Germany was 
the razor with which the Lord shaved France. England 
is the razor with which very shortly the Lord will shave 
Eussia. But nations are to repent in a day. May a 
speedy and world-wide coming to God hinder, on both 
sides the sea, all national calamity. But do not let us, as 
a nation, either by unrighteous law at Washington, or bad 
lives among ourselves, defy the Almighty. 

One would think that our national symbol of the eagle 
might sometimes suggest another eagle, that which ancient 
Rome carried. In the talons of that eagle were clutched 
at one time Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Dalmatia, 
Khactia, Noricum, Pannonia, Mcesia, Dacia, Thrace, 



SO KEW TABERNACLE SEEMONS. 

Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, Pales- 
tine, Egypt, and all Northern Africa, and all the islands 
of the Mediterranean, indeed, all the world that was worth 
having, an hundred and twenty millions of people under 
the wings of that one eagle. Where is she now? Ask 
Gibbon, the historian, in his prose poem, the " Decline 
and Fall of the Eoman Empire." Ask her gigantic ruins 
straggling their sadness through the ages, the screech owl 
at windows out of which world-wide conquerors looked. 
Ask the day of judgment when her crowned debauchees, 
Commodus and Pertinax, and Caligula and Diocletian, 
shall answer for their infamy? As men and as nations let 
us repent, and have our trust in a pardoning God, rather 
than depend on former successes for immunity! Out of 
thirteen greatest battles of the world, JSTajDoleon had lost 
but one before Waterloo. Pride and destruction often ride 
in the same saddle. 

But notice once more, and more than all in my text, 
that God is so kind and loving, that when it is necessary 
for Him to cut, He has to go to others for the sharp-edged 
weapon. " In the same day shall the Lord shave with a 
razor that is hired." God is love. God is pity. God is 
help. God is shelter. God is rescue. There are no sharp 
edges about Him, no thrusting points, no instruments of 
laceration. If you want balm for wounds, He has that. 
If you want salve for divine eyesight, He has that. But if 
there is sharp and cutting work to do which requires a 
razor, that He hires. God has nothing about Him that 
hurts, save when dire necessity demands, and then He has 
to go clear off to some one else to get the instrument, 



This divine geniality will be no novelty to those who 
have pondered the Calvarean massacre, where God sub- 
merged Himself in human tears, and crimsoned Himself 
from punctured arteries, and let the terrestrial and infernal 
worlds maul Him until the chandeliers of the sky had to 
be turned out, because the universe could not endure the 
indecency. Illustrious for love He mast have been to take 
all that as our substitute, paying out of His own heart the 
price of our admission at the gates of heaven. 

King Henry II., of England, crowned his son as king, 
and on the day of coronation put on a servant's garb and 
waited, he, the king, at the son's table, to the astonish- 
ment of all the princes. But we know of a more wondrous 
scene, the King of heaven and earth offering to put on 
you, His child, the crown of life, and in the form of a 
servant waiting on you with blessing. Extol that love, all 
painting, all sculpture, all music, all architecture, all 
worship ! In Dresdenian gallery let Eaphael hold Him up 
as a child, and in Antwerp Cathedral let Rubens hand 
Him down from the cross as a martyr, and Handel make 
all his oratorio vibrate around that one chord — " He was 
wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity." 
But not until all the redeemed get home, and from the 
countenances of all the piled-up galleries of the ransomed 
shall be revealed the wonders of redemption, shall either 
man or seraph or archangel know the height, and depth, 
and length, and breadth of the love of God. 

At our national capital, a monument in honor of him 
who did more than any one to achieve our American In- 
dependence, was for scores of years in building, and most 



80 

-<J NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 



of us were discouraged and said it never would be com- 
pleted. And how glad we all were when in the presence 
of the highest officials of the nation, the work was done ! 
But will the monument to Him who died for the eternal 
liberation of the human race ever be completed? For 
ages the work has been going up; evangelists and apostles 
and martyrs have been adding to the heavenly pile, and 
every one of the millions of the redeemed going up from 
earth, has made to it contribution of gladness, and weight 
of glory is swung to the top of other weight of glory, 
higher and higher as the centuries go by, higher and 
higher as the whole millenniums roll, sapphire on the top 
of jasper, sardonyx on the top of chalcedony, and chryso- 
prasus above topaz, until, far beneath shall be the walls 
and towers and domes of the great capitol, a monument 
forever and forever rising, and yet never done. " Unto 
Him who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in 
His own blood, and made us kings and priests forever." 
Allelujah, amen. 



WINDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM, 



"His windows being open and Ms chamber toward Jerusalem." 
Dan. vi: 10. 

The scoundrelly princes of Persia, urged on by political 
jealousy against Daniel, have succeeded in getting a law 
passed that whosoever prays to God shall be put under the 
paws and teeth of the lions, who are lashing themselves in 
rage and hunger up and down the stone cage, or putting 
their lower jaws on the ground, bellowing till the earth 
trembles. But the leonine threat did not hinder the devo- 
tion of Daniel, the Cceur-de-Lion of the ages. His ene- 
mies might as well have a law that the sun should not 
draw water or that the south wind should not sweep across 
a garden of magnolias or that God should be abolished. 
They could not scare him with the red-hot furnaces, and 
they can not now scare him with the lions. As soon as 
Daniel hears of this enactment he leaves his office of Secre- 
tary of State, with its upholstery of crimson and gold, and 
comes down the white marble steps and goes to his own 
house. He opens his window and puts the shutters back 
and pulls the curtain aside so that he can look toward the 
sacred city of Jerusalem, and then prays. 

I suppose the . people in the street gathered under and 
before his window, and said: " Just see that man defying 
the law; he ought to be arrested." And the constabulary 

(.83) 



81 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

of the city rush to the police head-quarters and report that 
Daniel is on his knees at the wide-open window. " You 
are my prisoner," says the officer of the law, dropping a 
heavy hand on the shoulder of the kneeling Daniel. As 
the constables open the door of the cavern to thrust in their 
prisoner, they see the glaring eyes of the monsters. But 
Daniel becomes the first lion-tamer, and they lick his hand 
and fawn at his feet, and that night he sleeps with the 
shaggy mane of a wild beast for his pillow, while the king 
that night, sleepless in the palace, has on him the paw and 
teeth of a lion he can not tame — the lion of a remorseful 
conscience. 

What a joicture it would be for some artist: Darius, in 
the early dusk of morning, not waiting for footmen or 
chariot, hastening to the den, all flushed and nervous and 
in dishabille, and looking through the crevices of the cage 
to see what had become of his prime-minister! " "What, 
no sound!" he says: " Daniel is surely devoured, and the 
lions are sleeping after their horrid meal, the bones of the 
poor man scattered across the floor of the cavern." With 
trembling voice Darius calls out, " Daniel!" No answer, 
for the prophet is yet in profound slumber. But a lion, 
more easily awakened, advances, and, with hot breath 
blown through the crevice, seems angrily to demand the 
cause of this interruption, and then another wild beast lifts 
his mane from under Daniel's head, and the prophet, wak- 
ing up, comes forth to report himself all unhurt and well. 

But our text stands us at Daniel's window, open toward 
Jerusalem. Why in that direction open? Jerusalem was 
his native land, and all the pomp of his Babylonish sue- 



WINDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM. 85 

cesses could not make him forget it. He came there from 
Jerusalem at eighteen years of age, and he never visited it, 
though he lived to be eighty-five years. Yet, when he 
wanted to arouse the deepest emotions and grandest aspira- 
tions of his heart, he had his window open toward his 
native Jerusalem. There are many of you to-day who 
understand that without any exposition. This is getting 
to be a nation of foreigners. They have come into all oc- 
cupations and professions. They sit in all churches. It 
may be twenty years ago since you got your naturalization 
papers, and you may be thoroughly Americanized, but you 
can't forget the land of your birth, and your warmest sym- 
pathies go out toward it. Your windows are open toward 
Jerusalem. Your father and mother are buried there. It 
may have been a very humble home in which you were 
born, but your memory often plays around it, and you 
hope some day to go and see it — the hill, the tree, the 
brook, the house, the place so sacred, the door from which 
you started off with parental blessing to make your own 
way in the world; and God only knows how sometimes you 
have longed to see the familiar places of your childhood, 
and how in awful crises of life you would like to have 
caught a glimpse of the old, wrinkled face that bent over 
you as you lay on the gentle lap twenty or forty or fifty 
years ago. You may have on this side of the sea risen in 
fortune, and, like Daniel, have become great, and may 
have come into prosperities which you never could have 
reached if you had stayed there, and you may have many 
windows to your house — bay-windows, and sky-light-win- 
dows, and windows of conservatory, and windows on all 



SG KEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. ' 

sides — but you have at least one window open toward Jeru- 
salem. 

When the foreign steamer comes to the wharf, you see 
the long line of sailors, with shouldered mail-bags, coming 
down the planks, carrying as many letters as you might 
suppose would be enough for a year's correspondence, 
and this repeated again and again during the week. Mul- 
titudes of them are letters from home, and at all the post- 
offices of the land people will go to the window and anx- 
iously ask for them, hundreds of thousands of persons 
finding that window of foreign mails the open window 
toward Jerusalem. Messages that say: " When are you 
coming home to see us? Brother has gone into the army. 
Sister is dead. Father and mother are getting very feeble. 
We are having a great struggle to get on here. Would 
you advise us to come to you, or will you come to us? All 
join in love, and hojDe to meet you, if not in this world, 
then in a better. Good-bye. " 

Yes, yes; in all these cities, and amid the flowering west- 
ern prairies, and on the slopes of the Pacific, and amid the 
Sierras, and on the banks of the lagoon, and on the 
ranches of Texas there is an uncounted multitude who, 
this hour, stand and sit and kneel with their windows open 
toward Jerusalem. Some of them played on the heather 
of the Scottish hills. Some of them were driven out by 
Irish famine. Some of them, in early life, drilled in the 
German army. Some of them were accustomed at Lyons 
or Marseilles or Paris to see on the street Victor Hugo and 
Gambetta. Some chased the chamois among the Alpine 
precipices. Some plucked the ripe clusters from Italian 



WINDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM. 87 

vineyard. Some lifted their faces under the midnight sun 
of Norway. It is no dishonor to our land that they re- 
member the place of their nativity. Miscreants would they 
be if, while they have some of their windows open to take 
in the free air of America and the sunlight of an atmos- 
phere which no kingly despot has ever breathed, they for- 
got sometime to open the window toward Jerusalem. 

No wonder that the son of the Swiss, when far away 
from home, hearing the national air of his country sung, 
the malady of home-sickness comes on him so powerfully 
as to cause his death. You have the example of the heroic 
Daniel of my text for keeping early memories fresh. For- 
get not the old folks at home. Write often; and, if you 
have surplus of means and they are poor, make practical 
contribution, and rejoice that America is bound to all the 
world by ties of sanguinity as is no other nation. Who 
can doubt but it is appointed for the evangelization of 
other lands? What a stirring, melting, gospelizing theory 
that all the doors of other nations are open toward us, 
while our windows are open toward them ! 

But Daniel, in the text, kej3t this jDort-hole of his domes- 
tic fortress unclosed because Jerusalem was the capital of 
sacred influences. There had smoked the sacrifice. There 
was the Holy of Holies. There was the Ark of the Cov- 
enant. There stood the temple. We are all tempted to 
keep our windows open on the opposite side, toward the 
world, that we may see and hear and appropriate its ad- 
vantages. What does the world say? What does the 
world think? What does the world do? Worshipers of 
the wjrld instead of worshipers of God. Windows open 



38 XEW TAl'.EEXACLE BEfcMOKS. 

toward Babylon. "Windows open toward Corinth. "Win- 
dows open toward Athens. "Windows open toward Sodom. 
Windows open toward the flats,, instead of windows 0]>en 
toward the hills. Sad mistake, for this world as a god is 
like something I saw the other day in the museum of 
Strasburg, Germany — the figure of a virgin in wood and 
iron. The victim in olden time was brought there, and 
this figure would open its arms to receive him, and, once 
infolded, the figure closed with a hundred knives and 
lances upon him, and then let him drop one hundred and 
eighty feet sheer down. So the world first embraces its 
idolaters, then closes upon them with many tortures, and 
then lets them drop forever down. The highest honor the 
world could confer was to make a man Roman emperor; 
but, out of sixty-three emperors, it allowed only six to die 
peacefully in then beds. 

The dominion of this world over multitudes is illustrated 
by the names of coins of many countries. They have their 
pieces of money which they call sovereigns and half sov- 
ereigns, crowns and half crowns, Xapoleons and half 
Napoleons, Fredericks and double Fredericks, and ducats, 
and Isabellinos, all of which names mean not so much use- 
fulness as dominion. The most of our windows open 
toward the exchange, toward the salon of fashion, toward 
the god of this world. In olden times the length of the 
English yard was fixed by the length of the arm of King 
Henry I. , and we are apt to measure things by a variable 
standard and by the human arm that in the great crises of 
life can give us no help. We need,, like Daniel, to open 
our windows toward God and religion. 



WINDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM. 89 

But, mark you, that good lion-tamer is not standing at 
the window, but kneeling, while he looks out. Most 
photographs are taken of those in standing or sitting post_ 
ure. I now remember but one picture of a man kneeling, 
and that was David Livingstone, who in the cause of God 
and civilization sacrificed himself; and in the heart of 
Africa his servant, Majwara, found him in the tent by the 
light of a candle, stuck on the top of a box, his head in his 
hands upon the pillow, and dead on his knees. But here 
is a great lion-tamer, living under the dash of the light, 
and his hair disheveled of the breeze, praying. The fact 
is, that a man can see further on his knees than standing 
on tiptoe. Jerusalem was about five hundred and fifty 
statute miles from Babylon, and the vast Arabian Desert 
shifted its sands between them. Yet through that open 
window Daniel saw Jerusalem, saw all between it, saw be- 
yond, saw time, saw eternity, saw earth, and saw heaven. 
Would you like to see the way through your sins to par- 
don, through your troubles to comfort, through temptation 
to rescue, through dire sickness to immortal health, 
through night to day, through things terrestrial to things 
celestial, you will not see them till you take Daniel" s post- 
ure. No cap of bone to the joints of the fingers, no cap 
of bone to the joints of the elbow, but cap of bone to the 
knees, made so because the God of the body was the God 
of the soul, and especial provision for those who want to 
pray, and physiological structure joins with spiritual neces- 
sity in bidding us pray, and pray, and pray. 

In olden time the Earl of Westmoreland said he had no 
need to pray, because he had enough pious tenants on 



90 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

his estate to pray for him; but all the prayers of the 
church universal amount to nothing unless, like Daniel, 
we pray for ourselves. Oh, men and women, bounded on 
one side by Shadrach/s red-hot furnace, and the other side 
by devouring lions, learn the secret of courage and deliver- 
ance by looking at that Babylonish window open toward 
the south-west! " Oh," you say, " that is the direction of 
the Arabian Desert!" Yes; but on the other side of the 
desert is God, is Christ, is Jerusalem, is heaven. 

The Brussels lace is superior to all other lace, so beauti- 
ful, so multiform, so expensive — four hundred francs a 
pound. All the world seeks it. Do you know how it is 
made? The spinning is done in a dark room, the only 
light admitted through a small aperture, and that light 
falling directly on the pattern. And the finest specimens 
of Christian character I have ever seen or ever expect to see 
are those to be found in lives all of whose windows have been 
darkened by bereavement and misfortune save one, but 
under that one window of prayer the interlacing of divine 
workmanship went on until it was fit to deck a throne, a 
celestial embroidery which angels admired and God ap- 
proved. 

But it is another Jerusalem toward which we now need 
to open our windows. The exiled evangelist of Ephesus 
saw it one day as the surf of the Icarian sea foamed and 
splashed over the bowlders at his feet, and his vision re- 
minded me of a wedding-day when the bride by sister and 
maid was having garlands twisted for her hair and jewels 
strung for her neck just before she puts her betrothed hand 
into the hand of her affianced: " I, John, saw the Holy 



WIKDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM. 9 1 

City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of 
heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 
Toward that bridal Jerusalem are our windows opened? 

We would do well to think more of heaven. It is not a 
mere annex of earth. It is not a desolate outpost. As 
Jerusalem was the capital of Judae, and Babylon the 
capital of the Babylonian monarchy, and London is the 
capital of Great Britain, and Washington is the capital of 
our own republic, the New Jerusalem is the capital of the 
universe. The king lives there, and the royal family of 
the redeemed have their palaces there, and there is a con- 
gress of many nations and the parliament of all the worlds. 
Yea, as Daniel had kindred in Jerusalem of whom he often 
thought, though he had left home when a very young 
man, perhaps father and mother and brothers and sisters 
still living, and was homesick to see them, and they be- 
longed to the high circles of royalty, Daniel himself hav- 
ing royal blood in his veins, so we have in the New Jeru- 
salem a great many kindred, and we are sometimes 
homesick to see them, and they are all princes and prin- 
cesses, in them the blood imperial, and we do well to keep 
our windows open toward their eternal residence. 

It is a joy for us to believe that while we are interested 
in them they are interested in us. Much thought of 
heaven makes one heavenly. The airs that blow through 
that open window are charged with life, and sweep up to 
us aromas from gardens that never wither, under skies 
that never cloud, in a spring-tide that never terminates. 
Compared with it all other heavens are dead failures. 

Homer's heaven was an elysium which he describes as a 



92 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

plain at the end of the earth or beneath, with no snow nor 
rainfall, and the sim never goes down, and Khadaman- 
thus, the justest of men, rules. Hesiod's heaven is what 
he calls the islands of the blessed, in the midst of the 
ocean, three times a year blooming with most exquisite 
flowers, and the air is tinted with purple, while games and 
music and horse-races occujjy the time. The Scandina- 
vian's heaven was the hall of Walhalla, where the god 
Odin gave unending wine-suppers to earthly heroes and 
heroines. The Mohammedan's heaven passes its disciples 
in over the bridge Al-Sirat, which is finer than a hair and 
sharper than a sword, and then they are let loose into a 
riot of everlasting sensuality. 

The American aborigines look forward to a heaven of 
illimitable hunting-ground, partridge and deer and wild 
duck more than plentiful, and the hounds never ofl the 
scent, and the guns never missing fire. But the geogra- 
pher has followed the earth round, and found no Homer's 
elysium. Voyagers have traversed the deep in all direc- 
tions, and found no Hesiod's islands of the blessed. The 
Mohammedan's celestial debauchery and the Indian's eter- 
nal hunting-ground for vast multitudes have no charm. 
But here rolls in the Bible heaven. No more sea — that is, 
no wide separation. No more night — that is, no insomnia. 
No more tears — that is, no heart-break. No more pain — 
that is, dismissal of lancet and bitter draught and miasma, 
and banishment of neuralgias and catalepsies and con- 
sumptions. All colors in the wall except gloomy black; 
all the music in the major-key, because celebrative and 
jubilant. River crystalline, gate crystalline, and skies 



WINDOWS TOWARD JERUSALEM. 93 

crystalline, because everything is clear and without doubt. 
White robes, and that means sinlessness. Vials full of 
odors, and that means pure regalement of the senses. 
Rainbow, and that means the storm is over. Marriage 
supper, and that means gladdest festivity. Twelve man- 
ner of fruits, and that means luscious and unending 
variety. Harp, trumpet, grand march, anthem, amen, 
and hallelujah in the same orchestra. Choral meeting 
solo, and overture meeting antiphon, and strophe joining 
dithyramb, as they roll into the ocean of doxologies. And 
you and I may have all that, and have it forever through 
Christ, if we will let Him with the blood of one wounded 
hand rub out our sin, and with the other wounded hand 
swing open the shining portals. 

Day and night keep your window open toward that 
Jerusalem. Sing about it. Pray about it. Think about 
it. Talk about it. Dream about it. Do not be incon- 
solable about your friends who have gone into it. Do not 
worry if something in your heart indicates that you are not 
far off from its ecstasies. Do not think that when a Chris- 
tian dies he stops, for he goes on. 

An ingenious man has taken the heavenly furlongs as 
mentioned in Revelation, and has calculated that there will 
be in heaven one hundred rooms sixteen feet square for 
each ascending soul, though this world should lose a hun- 
dred millions yearly. But all the rooms of heaven will be 
ours, for they are family rooms; and as no room in your 
house is too good for your children, so all the rooms of all 
the palaces of the heavenly Jerusalem will be free to God's 
children and even the throne-room will not be denied, and 



94 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

you may run up the steps of the throne, and put your hand 
on the side of the throne, and sit down beside the king ac- 
cording to the promise: " To him that overcometh will I 
grant to sit with me in my throne." 

But you can not go in except as conquerors. Many 
years ago the Turks and Christians were in battle, and the 
Christians were defeated, and with their commander 
Stej:>hen fled toward a fortress where the mother of this 
commander was staying. When she saw her son and his 
army in disgraceful retreat, she had the gates of the fort- 
ress rolled shut, and then from the top of the battlement' 
cried out to her son, " You can not enter here except an 
conqueror!" Then Stephen rallied his forces -and resumed 
the battle and gained the day, twenty thousand driving 
back two hundred thousand. For those who are defeated 
in the battle with sin and death and hell nothing but 
shame and contempt; but for those who gain the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ the gates of the Kew Jeru- 
salem will hoist, and there shall be an abundant entrance 
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord, toward which 
you do well to keep your windows open. 



STORMED AND TAKEN. 



"And Abimelech gat him up to Mount Zalmon, he and all thb 
people that were with him, and Abimelech took an ax in his hand, 
and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it, and laid it on 
his shoulder. . . . . And all the people likewise cut down 
every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to 
the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all the men of 
the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and wom- 
en." — Judges ix: 48, 49. 

Abimelech is a name malodorous in Bible history, and 
yet full of profitable suggestion. Buoys are black and un- 
comely, but they tell where the rocks are. The snake's 
rattle is hideous, but it gives timely warning. From the 
piazza of my summer home, night by night I saw a light- 
house fifteen miles away, not placed there for adornment, 
but to tell mariners to stand off from that dangerous point. 
So all the iron-bound coast of moral danger is marked 
with Saul, and Herod, and Eehoboam, and Jezebel, and 
Abimelech. These bad people are mentioned in the 
Bible, not only as warnings, but because there were some- 
times flashes of good conduct in their lives worthy of imi- 
tation. God sometimes drives a very straight nail with a 
very poor hammer. 

The city of Shechem had to be taken, and Abimelech 
and his men were to do it. I see the dust rolling up from 



96 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMOSB. 

their excited march. I hear the shouting of the captains 
and the yell of the besiegers. The swords clack sharply 
on the parrying shields, and the vociferation of two armies 
in death-grapple is horrible to hear. The battle goes on 
all day, and as the sun is setting Abimelech and his army 
cry " Surrender!" to the beaten foe. And, unable longer 
to resist, the city of Shechem falls; and there are pools of 
blood, and dissevered limbs, and glazed eyes looking up 
beggingly for mercy that war never shows, and dying 
soldiers with their head on the lap of mother, or wife, or 
sister, who have come out for the last offices of kindness 
and affection: and a groan rolls across the city, stopping 
not, because there is no spot for it to rest, so full is the 
place of other groans. A city wounded! A city dying! 
A city dead! Wail for Shechem, all ye who know the 
horrors of a sacked town! 

As I look over the city I can find only one building 
standing, and that is the temple of the god Berith. Some 
soldiers outside of the city, in a tower, finding that they 
can no longer defend Shechem, now begin to look out for 
their own personal safety, and they fly to this temple of 
Berith. They get within the door, shut it, and they say, 
" Now we are safe. Abimelech has taken the whole city, 
but he can not take this temple of Berith. Here we shall 
be under the protection of the gods." Oh, Berith, the 
god ! do your best now for these refugees. If you have 
eyes, pity them. If you have hands, help them. If you 
have thunderbolts, strike for them. 

But how shall Abimelech and his army take this temple 
cf Berith and the men who are there fortified? Will they 



STOKMED AND TAKEN. 97 

do it with sword? Nay. Will they do it with spear? 
Nay. With battering-ram, rolled up by hundred-armed 
strength, crashing against the walls? Nay. Abimelech 
marches his men to a wood in Zalmon. With his ax he 
hews off a limb of a tree, and puts that limb upon his own 
shoulder, and then he says to his men, " You do the 
same." They are obedient to their commander. 

Oh, what a strange army, with what strange equipment! 
They come to the foot of the temple of Berith, and Abim- 
elech takes his limb of a tree and throws it down; and 
the first platoon of soldiers come up and they throw down 
their branches; and the second platoon, and the third, un- 
til all around about the temple of Berith there is a pile of 
tree-branches. The Shechemites look out from the win- 
dows of the temple upon what seems to them childish play 
on the part of their enemies. But soon the flints are 
struck, and the spark begins to kindle the brush, and the 
flame comes up all through the pile, and the red elements 
leap to the casement, and the woodwork begins to blaze, 
and one arm of flame is thrown up on the right side of the 
temple, and another arm of flame is thrown up on the left 
side of the temple, until they clasp their lurid palms under 
the wild night sky, and the cry of "Fire!" within, and 
" Fire!" without announces the terror, and the strangula- 
tion, and the doom of the Shechemites, and the complete 
overthrow of the temple of the god Berith. Then there 
went up a shout, long and loud, from the stout lungs and 
swarthy chests of Abimelech and his men, as they stood 
amid the ashes and the dust, ciying: " Victory! Victory!" 

Now, I learn first from this subject the folly of depend- 



98 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

ing upon any one form of tactics in anything we have to do 
for this world or for God. Look over the weaponry of 
olden times — javelins, battle-axes, habergeons — and show 
me a single weapon with which Abimelech and his men 
could have gained such complete victory. It is no easy 
thing to take a teniple thus armed. I saw a house where, 
during revolutionary times, a man and his wife kept back 
a whole regiment hour after hour, because they were inside 
the house, and the assaulting soldiers were outside the 
house. Yet here Abimelech and his army come irp, 
they surround this temple, and they capture it without the 
loss of a single man on the part of Abimelech, although I 
suppose some of the old Israeli tish heroes told Abimelech: 
" You are only going up there to be cut to jrieces.^ Yet 
you are willing to testify to-day that by no other mode — 
certainly not by ordinary modes — could that temple so 
easily, so thoroughly have been taken. Fathers and 
mothers, brethren and sisters in Jesus Christ, what the 
Church most wants to learn this day is that any plan is 
right, is lawful, is best, which helps to overthrow the tem- 
ple of sin, and capture this world for God. We are very 
apt to stick to the old modes of attack. 

We put on the old-style coat of mail. We come up with 
the sharp, keen, glittering steel spear of argument, expect- 
ing in that way to take the castle, but they have a thou- 
sand spears where we have ten. And so the castle of sin 
stands. Oh, my friends, we will never capture this world 
for God by any keen saber of sarcasm, by any glittering 
lances of rhetoric, by any s<Tpping and mining of profound 
disquisition; by any gunpowdery explosions of indignation, 



STORMED AND TAKEN. 00 

by sharp shootings of wit, by howitzers of mental strength 
made to swing shell five miles, by cavalry horses gor- 
geously caparisoned pawing the air. In vain all the at- 
tempts on the part of these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, 
light horsemen, and grenadiers. 

My friends, I propose this morning a different style of 
tactics. Let each one go to the forest of God's promise 
and invitation, and hew down a branch and put it on his 
shoulder, and let us all come around these obstinate 
iniquities, and then, with this pile, kindled by the fires of 
a holy zeal and the flames of a consecrated life, we will 
burn them out. What steel can not do, fire may. And I, 
this morning, announce myself in favor of any plan of 
religious attack that succeeds — any plan of religious at- 
tack, however radical, however odd, however unpopular, 
however hostile to all the conventionalities of Church and 
State. We want more heart in our song, more heart in 
our alms-giving, more heart in our prayers, more heart in 
our preaching. Oh, for less of Abimelech's sword, and 
more of Abimelech's conflagration! I have often heard 

" There is a fountain filled with blood" 
sung artistically by four birds perched on their Sunday 
roost in the gallery, until I thought of Jenny Lind, and 
Xilsson, and Sontag, and all the other warblers; but 
there came not one tear to my eye, nor one master emotion 
to my heart. But one night 1 went down to the African 
Methodist meeting-house in Philadelphia, and at the close 
of the service a black woman, in the midst of the audience, 
began to sing that hymn, and all the audience joined in, 
and we were floated some three or four miles nearer heaven 



100 HEW TABERNACLE SEEMOXS. 

than I have ever been since. I saw with niy own eyes that 
" fountain filled with blood " — red, agonizing, sacrificial, 
redemptive — and I heard the crimson plash of the wave as 
we all went down under it : 

"For sinners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose aH their guilt}- stains." 

Oh, my friends, the Gospel is not a syllogism: it is not 
casuistry, it is not polemics, or the science of squabble. 
It is blood -red fact: it is warm-hearted invitation; it is 
leaping, bounding, flying good news; it is efflorescent with 
all light; it is rubescent with all glow; it is arborescent 
with all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount 
Washington, and from the Tip-top House; but there was 
no beauty in that compared with the day-spring from on 
high when Christ gives light to a soul. I have heard 
Parepa sing; but there was no music in that compared 
with the voice of Christ when He said: " Thy sins are for- 
given thee; go in peace. " Good news! Let every one cut 
down a branch of this tree of life and wave it. Let him 
throw it down and kindle it. Let all the way from Mount 
Zalmon to Shechem be filled with the tossing joy. Good 
news! This bonfire of the Gospel shall consume the last 
temple of sin, and will illumine the sky with apocalyptie 
joy that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. 
Any new plan that makes a man quit his sin, and that 
prostrates a wrong, I am as much in favor of as though all 
the doctors, and the bishops, and the archbishops, and the 
synods, and the academical gownsmen of Christianity sanc- 
tioned it. The temple of Berith must come down, and I 
do not care how it comes. 



STORMED AND TAKEN". 101 

Still further, I learn from this subject the power of ex- 
ample. If Abimelech had sat down on the grass and told 
his men to go and get the boughs, and go out to the bat- 
tle, they would never have gone at all, or, if they had, it 
would have been without any spirit or effective result; but 
when Abimelech goes with his own ax and hews down a 
branch, and with Abinielech's arm puts it on Abimelech' s 
shoulder, and marches on — then, my text says, all the peo- 
ple did the same. How natural that was! What made 
Garibaldi and Stonewall Jackson the most magnetic com- 
manders of this century? They always rode ahead. Oh, 
the overcoming power of example ! Here is a father on 
the wrong road; all his boys go on the wrong road. Here 
is a father who enlists for Christ; his children enlist. 

I saw, in some of the picture-galleries of Europe, that 
before many of the great works of the masters — the old 
masters — there would be sometimes four or five artists tak- 
ing copies of the pictures. These copies they were going 
to carry with them, perhaps to distant lands; and I have 
thought that your life and character are a masterpiece, 
and it is being copied, and long after you are gone it will 
bloom or blast in the homes of those who knew you, and 
be a Gorgon or a Madonna. Look out what you say. 
Look out what you do. Eternity will hear the echo. The 
best sermon ever preached is a holy life. The best music 
ever chanted is a consistent walk. 

I saw, near the beach, a wrecker's machine. It was a 
cylinder with some holes at the side, made for the thrust- 
ing in of some long poles with strong leverage; and when 
there is a vessel in trouble or going to pieces out in the 



102 KEW TABERHACLE SERMONSo 

offing, the wreckers shoot a rope out to the suffering men. 
They grasp it, and the wreckers turn the cylinder, and the 
rope winds around the cylinder, and those who are ship- 
wrecked are saved. So at your feet to-day there is an in- 
fluence with a tremendous leverage. The rope attached to 
it swings far out into the hillowy future. Your children, 
your children's children, and all the generations that are 
to follow, will grip that influence and feel the long-reach- 
ing pull long after the figures on your tombstone are so 
near worn out that the visitor can not tell whether it was 
in 1885, or 1775, or 1675 that you died. 

Still further, I learn from this subject the advantages of 
concerted action. If Abimelech had merely gone out with 
a tree-branch the work would not have been accomplished, 
or if ten, twenty, or thirty men had gone; but when all 
the axes are lifted, and all the sharp edges fall, and all 
these men carry each his tree-branch down and throw it 
about the temple, the victory is gained — the temple falls. 
My friends, where there is one man in the Church of God 
at this day shouldering his whole duty there are a great 
many who never lift an ax or swing a blow. 

Oh, we all want our boat to get over to the golden sands, 
but the most of us are seated either in the prow or in the 
stern, wrapped in our striped shawl, holding a big-handled 
sunshade, while others are blistered in the heat, and pull 
until the oar-locks groan, and the blades bend till they 
snap. Oh, religious sleepy-heads, wake up! While we 
have in our church a great many who are toiling for God, 
there are some too lazy to brush the flies off their heavy 
eyelids. 



STORMED AXD TAKEX. 103 

Suppose, in military circles, on the morning of battle 
the roll is called, and out of a thousand men only a hun- 
dred men in the regiment answered. What excitement 
there would be in the camp! What would the colonel 
say? What high talking there would be among the cap- 
tains, and majors, and the adjutants! Suppose word came 
to head-quarters that these delinquents excused themselves 
on the ground that they had overslept themselves, or that 
the morning was damp and they were afraid of getting 
their feet wet, or that they were busy cooking rations. My 
friends, this is the morning of the day of God Almighty's 
battle! Do you not see the troops? Hear you not all the 
trumpets of heaven and all the drums of hell ? Which side 
are you on? If you are on the right side, to what cavalry 
troop, to what artillery service, to what garrison duty do 
you belong? In other words, in what Sabbath-school do 
you teach? in what prayer-meeting do you exhort? to what 
penitentiary do you declare eternal liberty? to what alms- 
house do you announce the riches of heaven? What 
broken bone of sorrow have vou ever set? Are vou doing 
nothing? Is it possible that a man or woman sworn to be 
a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing nothing? 
Then hide the horrible secret from the angels. Keep it 
away from the book of judgment. If you are doing noth- 
ing do not let the world find it out, lest they charge your 
religion with being a false-face. Do not let your cowardice 
and treason be heard among the martyrs about the throne, 
lest they forget the sanctity of the place and curse your 
betrayal of that cause for which they agonized and died. 
May the eternal God rouse us all to action! As for my' 



104 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

self, I feel I would be ashamed to die now and enter 
heaven until I have accomplished something more decisive 
for the Lord that bought me. I would like to join with 
you in an oath, with hand high uplifted to heaven, swear- 
ing new allegiance to Jesus Christ, and to work more for 
His kingdom. Are you ready to join with me in some 
new work for Christ? I feel that there is such a thing as 
claustral piety, that there is such a thing as insular work; 
but it seems to me that what we want now is concerted 
action. The temple of Berith is very broad, and it is very 
high. It has been going up by the hands of men and 
devils, and no human enginery can demolish it; but if the 
fifty thousand ministers of Christ in this country should 
each take a branch of the tree of life, and all their congre- 
gations should do the same, and we should march on and 
throw these branches around the great temples of sin, and 
worldliness and folly, it would need no match, or coal, or 
torch of ours to touch off the pile; for, as in the days of 
Elijah, fire would fall from heaven and kindle the bonfire 
of Christian victory over demolished sin. It is kindling 
now! Huzzah! The day is ours! 

Still further, I learn from this subject the danger of 
false refuges. As soon as these Shechemites got into the 
temple they thought they were safe. They said: " Berith 
will take care of us. Abimelech may batter down every- 
thing else; he can not batter down this temple where we 
are now hid.^ But very soon they heard the timbers 
crackling, and they were smothered with smoke, and they 
miserably died. And you and I are just as much tempted 
to false refuges. The mirror this morning may have per- 



STORMED AND TAKEN". 105 

suaded you that you have a comely cheek; your best friends 
may have persuaded you that you have elegant manners. 
Satan may have told you that you are all right; but bear 
with me if I tell you that, if unpardoned, you are all 
wrong. I have no clinometer by which to measure how 
steep is the inclined plane you are descending, but I know 
it is very steep. " Well," you say, " if the Bible is true I 
am a sinner. Show me some refuge; I will step right into 
it." 

I suppose every person in this audience this moment is 
stepping into some kind of refuge. Here you step in the 
tower of good works. You say: " I shall be safe here in 
this refuge." The battlements are adorned; the steps are 
varnished; on the wall are pictures of all the suffering you 
have alleviated, and all the schools you have established, 
and all the fine things you have ever done. Up in that 
tower you feel you are safe. But hear you not the tramp 
of your unpardoned sins all around the tower? They each 
have a match. They are kindling the combustible 
material. You feel the heat and the suffocation. Oh, 
may you leap in time, the Gospel declaring: "By the 
deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." 

" Well," you say, " I have been driven out of that 
tower; where shall I go?" Step into this tower of indiffer- 
ence. You say: " If this tower is attacked, it will be a 
great while before it is taken." You feel at ease. But 
there is an Abimelech, with ruthless assaults, coming on. 
Death and his forces are gathering around, and they de- 
mand that you surrender everything, and they clamor for 
your immortal overthrow, and they throw their skeleton 



106 KEW TABERNACLE SERMOHS. 

arms in the windows, and with their iron fists they beat 
against the door; and while you are trying to keep them 
out you see the torches of judgment kindling, and every 
forest is a torch, and every mountain a torch, and every 
sea a torch; and while the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Hima- 
layas turn into a live coal, blown redder and redder by the 
whirlwind breath of a God omnipotent, what will become 
of your refuge of lies? 

"But," says some one, "you are engaged in a very 
mean business, driving us from tower to tower." Oh, 
no. I want to tell you of a Gibraltar that never has been 
and never will be taken; of a wall that no satanic assault 
can scale; of a bulwark that the judgment earthquakes 
can not budge. The Bible refers to it when it says: " In 
God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting 
arms." Oh, fling yourself into it! Tread down uncere- 
moniously everything that intercepts you. Wedge your 
way there. There are enough hounds of death and peril 
after you to make you hurry. Many a man has perished 
just outside the tower, with his foot on the step, with his 
hand on the latch. Oh, get inside! Not one surplus 
second have you to spare. Quick, quick, quick! 

Great God, is life such an uncertain thing? If I bear a 
little too hard with my right foot on the earth, does it 
break through into the grave? Is this world, which swings 
at the speed of thousands of miles an hour around the sun, 
going with tenfold more speed toward the judgment-day? 
Oh, I am overborne with the thought; and in the conclu- 
sion I cry to one and I cry to the other: " Oh, time! Oh, 
eternity ! Oh, the dead! Oh, the judgment-day! Oh, 



STORMED AND TAKEK. 107 

Jesus! Oh, God!" But, catching at the last apostrophe, 
I feel that I have something to hold on to: for " in God is 
thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting 
arms." And, exhausted with rny failure to save myself, I 
throw my whole weight of body, mind, and soul on this 
divine promise, as a weary child throws itself into the arms 
of its mother; as a wounded soldier throws himself on the 
hospital pillow; as a pursued man throws himself into the 
refuge; f or " in God is thy refuge, and underneath thee 
are the everlasting arms." Oh, for a flood of tears with 
which to express the joy of this eternal rescue! 



ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 



"And hath made of one blood all nations of men."— Acts 
xvii: 26. 

Some have supposed that God originally made an Asiatic 
Adam and a European Adam and an African Adam and 
an American Adam, but that theory is entirely overthrown 
by my text, which says that all nations are blood relatives, 
having sprung from one and the same stock. A difference 
in climate makes much of the difference in national tem- 
per. 

An American goes to Europe and stays there a long 
while, and finds his pulse moderating and his temper be- 
coming more calm. The air on this side the ocean is more 
tonic than on the other side. An American breathes more 
oxygen than a European. A European coming to America 
finds a great change taking place in himself. He walks 
with more rapid strides, and finds his voice becoming 
keener and shriller. The Englishman who walks in Lon- 
don Strancl at the rate of three miles the hour, coming to 
America and residing for a long while here, walks Broad- 
way at the rate of four miles the hour. Much of the dif- 
ference between an American and a European, between an 
Asiatic and an African, is atmosjoheric. The lack of the 
warm sunlight pales the Greenlander. The full dash of 
the sunlight darkens the African. 

(108) 



ALL THE WOELD AKIN". 109 

Then, ignorance or intelligence makes its impression on 
the physical organism — in the one case ignorance flatten- 
ing the skull, as with the Egyptian; in the other case in- 
telligence building up the great dome of the forehead, as 
with the German. Then the style of god that the nation 
worships decides how much it shall be elevated or de- 
based, so that those nations that worship reptiles are them- 
selves only a superior form of reptile, while those nations 
that worship the natural sun in the heavens are the noblest 
style of barbaric people. But whatever be the difference 
of physiognomy, and whatever the difference of tempera- 
ment, the physiologist tells us that after careful analysis he 
finds out that the plasma and the disk in the human blood 
have the same characteristics: so that if you should put 
twenty men from twenty nationalities abreast in line of 
battle, and a bullet should fly through the hearts of the 
twenty men, the blood flowing forth would, through analy- 
sis, prove itself to be the same blood in every instance. In 
other words, the science of the day confirming the truth of 
my text that " God hath made of one blood all nations of 
men. " 

I have thought, my friends, it might be profitable this 
morning if I gave you some of the moral and religious im- 
pressions which I received when, through your indulgence, 
I had transatlantic absence. First, I observe that the 
majority of people in all lands are in a mighty struggle for 
bread. While in nearly all lands there are only a few 
cases of actual starvation reported, there is a vast popula- 
tion in- every country I visited who have a limited supply 
of food, or such food as is incompetent to sustain physical 



110 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

vigor. This struggle in some lands is becoming more 
agonizing, while here and there it is lightened. I have joy 
in reporting that Ireland, about the sufferings of which we 
have heard so much, has far better prospects than I have 
seen there in previous visits. In 1879, coming home from 
that land, I prophesied the famine that must come upon, 
and did come upon, the deluged fields of that country. 
This year the crops are large, and both parties — those who 
like the English Government and those who don't like it — 
are expecting relief. I said to one of the intelligent men 
of Ireland: " Tell me in a few words what are the suffer- 
ings of Ireland, and what is the Land Relief enactment?" 
He replied: " I will tell you. Suppose I am a landlord 
and you a tenant. You rent from me a place for ten 
pounds a year. You improve it. You turn it from a bog 
into a garden. You put a house upon it. After awhile I, 
the landlord, come around, and I say to my agent: ' How 
much rent is this man paying; 5 He answers, ' Ten 
pounds/ ' Is that all? Put his rent up to twenty 
pounds. '; The tenant goes on improving his property, and 
after awhile I come around and I say to my agent, ' How 
much rent is this man paying ?' He says, ' Twenty 
pounds/ ' Put his rent up to twenty-five pounds/ The 
tenant protests and says, ' I can't pay it/ Then I, the 
landlord, say, ' Pay it or get out;' and the tenant is help- 
less, and, leaving the place, the property in its improved 
condition turns over to the landlord. Now, to stop that 
outrage the Relief Enactment comes in and appoints com- 
missioners who shall see that if the tenant is turned out, 
he shall receive the difference of value between the farm as 



ALL THE WORLD AKIN". Ill 

lie got it and the farm as he surrenders it. Moreover, the 
government loans money to the tenant, so that he may buy 
the property out and out if the landlord will sell." Mighty 
advancement toward the righting of a great wrong ! But 
there and in all lands, not excepting our own, there is a 
far-reaching distress. And let those who broke their fast 
this morning, and those who shall dine to-day, remember 
those who are in want, and by prayer and practical be- 
neficence do all they can to alleviate the hunger swoon of 
nations. 

Another impression was — indeed the impression carried 
with me all the summer — the thought already suggested, 
the brotherhood of man. The fact is that the differences 
are so small between nations that they may be said to be 
all alike. Though I spent the most of the summer in 
silence, I spoke a few times and to people of different 
nations, and how soon I noticed that they were very much 
alike! If a man knows how to play the piano, it does not 
make any difference whether he finds it in New Orleans or 
San Francisco or Boston or St. Petersburg or Moscow or 
Madras; it has so many keys, and he puts his fingers right 
on them. And the human heart is a divine instrument, 
with just so many keys in all cases, and you strike some of 
them and .there is joy, and you strike some of them and 
there is sorrow. Plied by the same motives, lifted up by 
the same success, depressed by the same griefs. The cab- 
men of London have the same characteristics as the cab- 
men of New York, and are just as modest and retiring. 
The gold and silver drive Piccadilly and the Boulevards 
just as they drive Wall Street. If there be a great polit- 



112 NEW TABEKNACLE SERMONS. 

ical excitement in Europe,, the Bourse in Paris howls just 
as loudly as ever did the American gold-room. 

The same grief that we saw in our country in 1864 you 
may find now in the military hospitals of England con- 
taining the wounded and sick from the Egyptian wars. 
The same widowhood and orphanage that sat down in de- 
spair after the battles of Shiloh and South Mountain 
poured their grief in the Shannon and the Clyde and the 
Dee and the Thames. Oh, ye men and women who know 
how to pray, never get up from your knees until you have 
implored God in behalf of the fourteen hundred millions 
of the race just like yourselves, finding life a tremendous 
struggle! For who knows but that as the sun to-day 
draws up drops of water from the Caspian and the Black 
seas and from the Amazon and the Mississippi, after a 
while to distill the rain, these very drops on the fields — 
who knows but that the sun of righteousness may draw up 
the tears of your sympathy, and then rain them down in 
distillation of comfort o'er all the world? 

"Who is that poor man, carried on a stretcher to the 
Afghan ambulance? He is your brother. If in the Pan- 
theon at Paris you smite your hand against the wall among 
the tombs of the dead, you will hear a very strange echo 
coming from all parts of the Pantheon just as soon as you 
smite the wall. And I suppose it is so arranged that every 
stroke of sorrow among the tombs of bereavement ought to 
have loud, long, and oft-repeated echoes of sympathy all 
around the world. Oh, what a beautiful theory it is — and 
it is a Christian theory — that Englishman, Scotchman, 
Irishman, Norwegian, Frenchman, Italian, Russian, are 



ALL THE WORLD AKIN". 113 

all akin. Of one blood all nations. That is a very beau- 
tiful inscription that I saw a few days ago over the door in 
Edinburgh, the door of the house where John Knox used 
to live. It is getting somewhat dim now, but there is the 
inscription, fit for the door of any household — " Love God 
above all, and your neighbor as yourself." 

I was also impressed in journeying on the other side the 
sea with the difference the Bible makes in countries. The 
two nations of Europe that are the most moral to-day and 
that have the least crime are Scotland and Wales. They 
have by statistics, as you might find, fewer thefts, fewer 
arsons, fewer murder;?. What is the reason? A bad book 
can hardly live in Wales. The Bible crowds it out. I was 
told by one of the first literary men in Wales: " There is 
not a bad book in the Welsh language." He said: " Bad 
books come down from London, but they can not live 
here." It is the Bible that is dominant in Wales. And 
then in Scotland just open your Bible to give out your 
text, and there is a rustling all over the house almost 
startling to an American. What is it? The people open- 
ing their Bibles to find the text, looking at the context, 
picking out the referenced passages, seeing whether you 
make right quotation. Scotland and Wales Bible-reading 
people. That accounts for it. A man, a city, a nation 
that reads God"s Word must be virtuous. That Book is 
the foe of all wrong-doing. What makes Edinburgh bet- 
ter tban Constantinople? The Bible. 

Oh, I am afraid in America we are allowing the good 
book to be covered up with other good books! We have 
our ever-welcome morning and evening newspapers, and 



114 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

we have our good books on all subjects — geological sub- 
jects, botanical subjects, physiological subjects, theological 
subjects — good books, beautiful books, and so many good 
books that we have not time to read the Bible. Oh, my 
friends, it is not a matter of very great importance that 
you have a family Bible on the center-table in your parlor! 
Better have one pocket Xew Testament, the passages 
marked, the leayes turned down, the binding worn smooth 
with much usage, than fifty pictorial family Bibles too 
handsome to read! Oh, let us take a whisk-broom and 
brush the dust off our Bibles! Do you want poetry? Go 
and hear Job describe the war-horse, or David tell how the 
mountains skipped like lambs. Do you want logic? Go 
and hear Paul reason until your brain aches under the 
spell of his mighty intellect. Do you want history? Go 
and see Moses put into a few pages stupendous informa- 
tion which Herodotus, Thucydides, and Prescott never 
preached after. And, above all, if you want to find how 
a nation struck down by sin can rise to happiness and to 
heaven, read of that blood which can wash away the pollu- 
tion of a world. There is one passage in the Bible of vast 
tonnage: " God so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." Oh, may God fill this 
country with Bibles and help the ^people to read them ! 

I was also impressed in my transatlantic journeys with 
the wonderful power that Christ holds among the nations. 
The great name in Europe to-day is not Victoria, not 
Marquis of Salisbury, not William the Emperor, not Bis- 
marck; the great name in Europe to-day is Christ. You 



ALL THE WORLD AKIK. 115 

find the crucifix on the gate-post, you find it in the hay- 
field, you find it at the entrance of the manor, you find it 
by the side of the road. 

The greatest pictures in all the galleries of Italy, Germa- 
ny, France, England, and Scotland are Bible pictures. What 
were the subjects of BaphaeFs great paintings? " The 
Transfiguration/' " The Miraculous Draught of Fishes/' 
"The Charge to Peter/' "The Holy Family," "The 
Massacre of the Innocents," " Moses at the Burning 
Bush," " The Nativity," " Michael the Archangel," and 
the four or fiye exquisite " Madonnas." "What are Tin- 
toretto's great pictures? " Fall of Adam," " Cain and 
Abel," " The Plague of the Fiery Serpent," " Paradise," 
"Agony in the Garden," "The Temptation," "The 
Adoration of the Magi," " The Communication," " Bap- 
tism," " Massacre of the Innocents," " The Flight into 
Egypt/' " Tne Crucifixion," " The Madonna." What 
are Titian's great pictures? " The Flagellation of 
Christ," "The Supper at Emmaus," "The Death of 
Abel," "The Assumption," "The Entombment," 
" Faith," " The Madonna." What are Michael Angelo's 
great pictures? " The Annunciation," " The Spirits in 
Prison," " At the feet of Christ," " The Infant Christ," 
" The Crucifixion," " The Last Judgment." What are 
Paul Veronese's great pictures? " Queen of Sheba," 
" The Marriage in Cana," " Magdalen Washing the Feet 
of Christ," " The Holy Family." Who has not heard of 
Da Vinci's " Last Supper "? Who has not heard of Tur- 
ner's "Pools of Solomon"? Who has not heard of 
Claude's "Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca"? Who has 



116 NEW TABEKNACLE SEBMONS. 

not heard of Dilrer's " Dragon of the Apocalypse"? The 
mightiest picture on this planet is Rubens' ' ' Scourging of 
Christ." Painter's pencil loves to sketch the face of 
Christ. Sculptor's chisel loves to present the form of 
Christ. Organs love to roll forth the sorrows of Christ. 

The first time you go to London go into the Dore pict- 
ure gallery. As I went and sat down before " Christ De- 
scending the Steps of the Praetorium," at the first I was 
disappointed. I said: " There isn't enough majesty in 
that countenance, not enough tenderness in that eye;" 
but as I sat and looked at the picture it grew upon me 
until I was overwhelmed with its power, and I staggered 
with emotion as I went out into the fresh air, and said; 
" Oh, for that Christ I must live, and for that Christ I 
must be willing to die!" Make that Christ your personal 
friend, my sister, my brother. You may never go to 
Milan to see Da Vinci's " Last Supper;" but, better than 
that, you can have Christ come and sup with you. You 
may never get to Antwerp to see Rubens' " Descent of 
Christ from the Cross," but you can have Christ come 
down from the mountain of His suffering into your heart 
and abide there forever. Oh, you must have Him! We 
are all so diseased with sin that we want that which hurts 
us, and we won't have that which cures us. The best 
thing for you and for me to do to-day is to get down on 
our bended knees before God and say: " Oh, Almighty 
Son of God, I am blind! I want to see. My arms are 
palsied. I want to take hold of thy cross. Have mercy 
on me, Lord Jesus!" Why will you live on husks when 
you may sit down to this white bread of heaven? Oh, with 



ALL THE WORLD AKIN. 117 

such a God, and with such a Christ, and with such a Holy 
Spirit, and with such an immortal nature, wake up! 

Once more, I was impressed greatly on the other side the 
sea with the wonderful triumphs of the Christian religion. 
The tide is rising, the tide of moral and spiritual prosper- 
ity in the world. I think that any man who keeps his 
eyes open, traveling in foreign lands, will come to that 
conclusion. More Bibles than ever before, more churches, 
more consecrated men and women, more people ready to 
be martyrs now than ever before, if need be; so that in- 
stead of there being, as people sometimes say, less spirit of 
martyrdom now than ever before, I believe where there 
was once one martyr there would be a thousand martyrs if 
the fires were kindled — men ready to go through flood and 
fire for Christ's sake. Oh, the signs are promising! The 
world is on the way to millennial brightness. All art, all 
invention, all literature, all commerce will be the Lord's. 

These ships that you see going up and down New York 
harbor are to be brought into the service of God. All 
those ships I saw at Liverpool, at Southampton, at Glas- 
gow, are to be brought into the service of Christ. What is 
that passage, "Ships of Tarshish shall bring presents"? 
That is what it means. Oh, what a goodly fleet when the 
vessels of the sea come into the service of God! No guns 
frowning through the port-holes, no pikes hung in the 
gangway, nothing from cut-water to taflxail to suggest 
atrocity. Those ships will come from all parts of the seas. 
Great flocks of ships that never met on the high sea but in 
wrath, will cry, " Ship ahoy!" and drop down beside each 
other in calmness, the flags of Emmanuel streaming from 



118 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

the top-gallants. The old slaver, with decks scrubbed and 
washed and glistened and burnished — the old slaver will 
wheel into line; and the Chinese junk and the Venetian 
gondola, and the miners' and the pirates' corvette, will 
fall into line, equipped, readorned, beautified, only the 
small craft of this grand flotilla which shall float out for 
the truth — a flotilla mightier than the armada of Xerxes 
moving in the pomp and pride of Persian insolence; 
mightier than the Carthaginian navy rushing with forty 
thousand oarsmen upon the Roman galleys, the life of 
nations dashed out against the gunwales. 

Rise, sea! and shine, heavens! to greet this 
squadron of light and victory! On the glistening decks 
are the feet of them that bring good tidings, and songs of 
heaven float among the rigging. Crowd on all the can- 
vas. Line-of -battle ship and merchantmen wheel into the 
way. It is noon. Strike eight bells. From all the squad- 
ron the sailors' songs arise. " Surely the isles shall wait 
for thee, and the ships of Tarshish to bring thy sons from 
afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of 
the Lord thy God, and the Holy One of Israel." 



A MOMENTOUS OUEST. 



' Seek ye the Lord while he maybe found." — Isa. lv: 6. 

Isaiah stands head and shoulders above the other Old 
Testament authors in vivid descriptiveness of Christ. 
Other prormets give an outline of our Saviour's features. 
Some of them present, as it were, the side face of Christ; 
others a bust of Christ; but Isaiah gives us the full-length 
portrait of Christ. Other Scripture writers excel in some 
things. Ezekiel more weird, David more pathetic, Solo- 
mon more epigrammatic, Habakkuk more sublime; but 
when you want to see Christ coming out from the gates of 
prophecy in all His grandeur and glory, you involuntarily 
turn to Isaiah. So that if the prophecies in regard to 
Christ mMrt be called the " Oratorio of the Messiah," the 
writing of Isaiah is the " Hallelujah Chorus," where all 
the batons wave and all the trumpets come in. Isaiah was 
not a man picked up out of insignificance by inspiration. 
He was known and honored. Josephus, and Philo, and 
Sirach extolled him in their writings. What Paul was 
among the apostles, Isaiah was among the prophets. 

My text finds him standing on a mountain of inspira- 
tion, looking out into the future, beholding Christ advanc- 
ing and anxious that all men might know Him; his voice 
rings down the ages: " Seek ye the Lord while He may 

(119) 



120 KEW Tabernacle sermons. 

be found." " Oh," sa} 3 some one: " that was for olden 
times. " No, my hearer. If you have traveled in other 
lands you have taken a circular letter of credit from some 
banking-house in New York, and in St. Petersburg, or 
Venice, or Rome, or Antwerp, or Brussels, or Paris; you 
presented that letter and got financial help immediately. 
And I want you to understand that the text, instead of be- 
ing appropriate for one age, or for one land, is a circular 
letter for all ages and for all lands, and wherever it is pre- 
sented for help, the help comes: " Seek ye the Lord while 
He may be found." 

I come, to-day, with no hair-spun theories of religion, 
with no nice distinctions, with no elaborate disquisition; 
but with a plain talk on the matters of personal religion. 
I feel that the sermon I preach this morning will be the 
savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. In other 
words, the Gospel of Christ is a powerful medicine: it 
either kills or cures. There are those who say: " I would 
like to become a Christian. I have been waiting a good 
while for the right kind of influences to come;" and still 
you are waiting. You are wiser in worldly things than 
you are in religious things. If you want to get to Albany, 
you go to the Grand Central Depot, or to the steam-boat 
wharf, and, having got your ticket, you do not sit down on 
the wharf or sit in the depot; you get aboard the boat or 
train. And yet there are men who say they are waiting to 
get to heaven — waiting, waiting, but not with intelligent 
waiting, or they would get on board the line of Christian 
influences that would bear them into the kingdom of God. 

Now you know very well that to seek a thing is to search 



A MOMENTOUS QTJEST. 121 

for it with earnest endeavor. If you want to see a certain 
man in New York, and there is a matter of $10,000 con- 
nected with your seeing him, and you can not at first find 
him, you do not give up the search. You look in the 
directory, but can not find the name; you go in circles 
where you think, perhaps, he may mingle, and, having 
found the part of the city where he lives, but perhaps not 
knowing the street, you go through street after street, and 
from block to block, and you keep on searching for weeks 
and for months. 

You say: " It is a matter of $10,000 whether I see him 
or not. " Oh, that men were as persistent in seeking for 
Christ! Had you one half that persistence you would long 
ago have found Him who is the joy of the forgiven spirit. 
We may pay our debts, we may attend church, we may 
relieve the poor, we may be public benefactors, and yet all 
our life disobey the text, never seek God, never gain 
heaven. Oh, that the Spirit of God would help this morn- 
ing while I try to show you, in carrying out the idea of my 
text, first, how to seek the Lord, and in the next place, 
when to seek Him. " Seek ye the Lord while He may be 
found. ,J 

I remark, in the first place, you are to seek the Lord 
through earnest and believing prayer. God is not an 
autocrat or a despot seated on a throne, with His arms 
resting on brazen lions, and a sentinel pacing up and down 
at the foot of the throne. God is a father seated in a 
bower, waiting for His children to come and climb on His 
knee, and get His kiss and His benediction. Prayer is the 
cup with which we go to the '" fountain of living water," 



122 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

and dip up refreshment for our thirsty soul. Grace does 
not come to the heart as we set a cask at the corner of the 
house to catch the rain in the shower. It is a pulley 
fastened to the throne of God, which we pull, bringing the 
blessing. 

I do not care so much what posture you take in prayer, 
nor how large an amount of voice you use. You might 
get down on your face before God, if you did not pray 
right inwardly, and there would be no response. You 
might cry at the top of your voice, and unless you had a 
believing spirit within, your cry would not go further up 
than the shout of a plow-boy to his oxen. Prayer must be 
believing, earnest, loving. You are in your house some 
summer day, and a shower comes up, and a bird, 
affrighted, darts into the window, and wheels about the 
room. You seize it. You smooth its ruffled plumage. 
You feel its fluttering heart. You say, " Poor thing, poor 
thing I" .Now, a prayer goes out of the storm of this 
world into the window of God's mercy, and He catches it, 
and He feels its fluttering pulse, and He puts it in His 
own bosom of affection and safety. Prayer is a warm, 
ardent, pulsating exercise. It is the electric battery 
which, touched, thrills to the throne of God! It is the 
diving-bell in which we go down into the depths of God's 
mercy and bring up " pearls of great price." There was 
an instance where prayer made the waves of the Gennes- 
aret solid as Euss pavement. Oh, how many wonderful 
things prayer has accomplished! Have you ever tried it? 
In the days when the Scotch Covenanters were perse- 
cuted, and the enemies were after them, one of the head 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 123 

men among the Covenanters prayed: " Oh, Lord, we be 
as dead men unless Thou shalt help us! Oh, Lord, throw 
the lap of Thy cloak over these poor things!" And in- 
stantly a Scotch mist enveloped and hid the persecuted 
from their persecutors — the promise literally fulfilled: 
" While they are yet speaking I will hear." 

Oh, impenitent soul, have you ever tried the power of 
prayer? God says: " He is loving, and faithful, and 
patient." Do you believe that? You are told that Christ 
came to save sinners. Do you believe that? You are told 
that all you have to do to get the pardon of the Gosj)el is 
to ask for it. Do you believe that? Then come to Him 
and say: " Oh, Lord! I know Thou canst not lie. Thou 
hast told me to come for pardon, and I could get it. I 
come, Lord. Keep Thy promise, and liberate my captive 
soul." 

Oh, that you might have an altar in the parlor, in the 
Kitchen, in the store, in the barn, for Christ will be will- 
ing to come again to the manger to hear prayer. He 
would come in your place of business, as He confronted 
Matthew, the tax commissioner. If a measure should 
come before Congress that you thought would ruin the 
nation, how you would send in petitions and remon- 
strances! And yet there has been enough sin in your heart 
to ruin it forever, and you have never remonstrated or 
petitioned against it. If your physical health failed, and 
you had the means, you would go and spend the summer 
in Germany, and the winter in Italy, and you would think 
it a very cheap outlay if you had to go all round the earth 
to get back your physical health. Have you made any 



1M tfEW TAEERXACLE SERMOXS. 

effort, any expenditure, any exertion for your immortal 
and spiritual health? No, you have not taken one step. 

that you might now begin to seek after God with 
earnest prayer. Some of you have been working for years 
and years for the support of your families. Have you 
given one half day to the working out of your salvation 
with fear and trembling? You came here this morning 
with an earnest purpose, I take it, as I have come hither 
with an earnest purpose, and we meet face to face, and I 
tell you, first of all, if you want to find the Lord, you must 
pray, and pray, and pray. 

1 remark again, you must seek the Lord through Bible 
study. The Bible is the newest book in the world. 
" Oh," you say, " it was made hundreds of years ago, and 
the learned men of King James translated it hundreds of 
years ago. " I confute that idea by telling you it is not 
five minutes old, when God, by His blessed Spirit, retrans- 
lates it into the heart. If you will, in the seeking of the 
way of life through Scripture study, implore God's light to 
fall upon the page, you will find that these promises are 
not one second old, and that they drop straight from the 
throne of God into your heart. 

There are many people to whom the Bible does not 
amount to much. If they merely look at the outside 
beauty, why it will no more lead them to Christ than 
Washington's farewell address or the Koran of .Mohammed 
or the Shaster of the Hindoos. It is the inward light of 
God's Word you must get or die. I went u}3 to the church 
of the Madeleine, hi Paris, and looked at the doors which 
were the most wonderfully constructed I ever saw, and I 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 125 

could have stayed there for a whole week; but I had only 
a little time, so, having glanced at the wonderful carving 
on the doors, I passed in and looked at the radiant altars, 
and the sculptured dome. Alas, that so many stop at the 
outside door of God's Holy Word, looking at the rhetorical 
beauties, instead of going in and looking at the altars of 
sacrifice and the dome of God's mercy and salvation that 
hovers over penitent and believing souls ! 

my friends ! if you merely want to study the laws of 
language, do not go to the Bible. It was not made for 
that. Take " Howe's Elements of Criticism " — it will be 
better than the Bible for that. If you want to study 
metaphysics, better than the Bible will be the writings of 
William Hamilton. But if you want to know how to have 
sin pardoned, and at last to gain the blessedness of 
Heaven, search the Scriptures, " for in them ye have 
eternal life. ' ' 

When people are anxious about their souls — and there 
are some such here to-day — there are those who recommend 
good books. That is all right. But I want to tell you 
that the Bible is the best book under such circumstances. 
Baxter wrote " A Call to the Unconverted," but the Bible 
is the best call to the unconverted. Philip Doddridge 
wrote " The Eise and Progress of Eeligion in the Soul," 
but the Bible is the best rise and progress. John Angell 
James wrote " Advice to the Anxious Inquirer," but the 
Bible is the best advice to the anxious inquirer. 

0, the Bible is the very book you need, anxious and in- 
quiring soul! A dying soldier said to his mate: "Com- 
rade, give me a drop!" The comrade shook up the can- 



126 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

teen, and said: " There isn't a drop of water in the can- 
teen." " Oh," said the dying soldier, " that's not what I 
want; feel in my knapsack for my Bible/' and his com- 
rade found the Bible, and read him a few of the gracious 
promises, and the dying soldier said: "Ah, that's what 
I want. There isn't anything like the Bible for a dying 
soldier, is there, my comrade?" blessed book while we 
live ! Blessed book when we die ! 

I remark, again, we must seek God through church 
ordinances. " What," say you, " can't a man be saved 
without going to church?" I reply, there are men, I sup- 
pose, in glory, who have never seen a church: but the 
church is the ordained means by which we are to be 
brought to God; and if truth affects us when we are alone, 
it affects us more mightily when we are in the assembly — 
the feelings of others emphasizing our own feelings. The 
great law of synrpathy comes into play, and a truth that 
would take hold only with the grasp of a sick man, beats 
mightily against the soul with a thousand heart-throbs. 

When you come into the religious circle, come only with 
one notion, and only for one purpose — to find the way to 
Christ. When I see people critical about sermons, and 
critical about tones of voice, and critical about sermonic 
delivery, they make me think of a man in prison. He is 
condemned to death, but an officer of the government 
brings a pardon and puts it through the wicket of the 
prison, and says: " Here is your pardon. Come and get 
it." " What! Do you expect me to take that pardon 
offered with such a voice as you have, with such an awk- 
ward manner as vou have? I would rather die than so 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 127 

compromise my rhetorical notions!" Ah, the man does 
not say that; he takes it! It is his life. He does not care 
how it is handed to him. And if, this morning, that 
pardon from the throne of God is offered to our souls, 
should we not seize it, regardless of all criticism, feeling 
that it is a matter of heaven or hell? 

But I come now to the last part of my text. It tells us 
when we are to seek the Lord. " While He may be 
found." When is that? Old age? You may riot see old 
age. To-morrow? You may not see to-morrow. To- 
night? You may not see to-night. Xow! if I could 
only write on every heart in three capital letters, that word 
N-O-W— Now! 

Sin is an awful disease. I hear people say with a toss 
of the head and with a trivial manner: " Oh, yes, I'm a 
sinner." Sin is an awful disease. It is leprosy. It is 
dropsy. It is consumption. It is all moral disorders in 
one. !Now you know there is a crisis in a disease. Per- 
haps you have had some illustration of it in your family. 
Sometimes the physician has called, and he has looked at 
the patient and said: " That case was simple enough; but 
the crisis has passed. If you had called me yesterday, or 
this morning, I could have cured the patient. It is too 
late now; the crisis has passed." Just so it is in the 
spiritual treatment of the soul — there is a crisis. Before 
that, life ! After that, death ! my dear brother, as you 
love your soul do not let the crisis pass unattended to ! 

There are some here who can remember instances in life 
when, if they had bought a certain property, they would 
have become very rich. A few acres that would have cost 



128 K"EW TABEKNACLE SEKMONS. 

them almost nothing were offered them. They refused 
them. Afterward a large village or city sprung up on 
those acres of ground, and they see what a mistake they 
made in not buying the property. There was an oppor- 
tunity of getting it. It never came back again. And so 
it is in regard to a man's spiritual and eternal fortune. 
There is a chance; if you let that go, perhaps it never 
comes back. Certainly, that one never comes back. 
- A gentleman told me that at the battle of Gettysburg he 
stood upon a height looking off upon the conflicting 
armies. He said it was the most exciting moment of his 
life; now one army seeming to triumph, and now the 
other. After awhile the host wheeled in such a way that 
he knew in five minutes the whole question would be de- 
cided. He said the emotion was almost unbearable. 
There is just such a time to-day with you, impenitent 
soul! — the forces of light on the one side, and the siege- 
guns of hell on the other side, and in a few moments the 
matter will be settled for eternity. 

There is a time which mercy has set for leaving port. 
If you are on board before that, you will get a passage for 
heaven. If you are not on board, you miss your passage 
for heaven. As in law courts a case is sometimes ad- 
journed from term to term, and from year to year till the 
bill of costs eats up the entire estate, so there are men who 
are adjourning the matter of religion from time to time, 
and from year to year, until heavenly bliss is the bill of 
costs the man will have to pay for it. 

Why defer this matter, oh, my dear hearer? Have you 
any idea that sin will wear out? that it will evaporate? 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 129 

that it will relax its grasp? that you may find religion as a 
man accidentally finds a lost pocket-book? Ah, no! Ko 
man ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relax- 
ing of sin. The embarrassments are all the time increas- 
ing. The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer 
you postpone this matter the steeper the path will become. 
I ask those men who are before me this morning, whether, 
in the ten or fifteen years they have passed in the post- 
ponement of these matters, they have come any nearer 
God or heaven ? 

I would not be afraid to challenge this whole audience, 
so far as they may not have found the peace of the Gospel, 
in regard to the matter. Your hearts, you are willing 
frankly to tell me, are becoming harder and harder, and 
that if you come to Christ it will be more of an undertak- 
ing now than it ever would have been before. Oh, fly for 
refuge! The avenger of blood is on the track! The 
throne of judgment will soon be set; and, if you have any- 
thing to do toward your eternal salvation, you had better 
do it now, for the redemption of your soul is jirecious, and 
it cease th forever! 

Oh, if men could only catch just one glimpse of Christ, 
I know they would love Him! Your heart leaps at the 
sight of a glorious sunrise or sunset. Can you be without 
emotion as the Sun of Kighteousness rises behind Calvary, 
and sets behind Joseph's sepulcher? He is a blessed 
Saviour! Every nation has its type of beauty. There is 
German beauty, and Swiss beauty, and Italian beauty, 
and English beauty; but I care not in what land a man 
first looks at Christ, he pronounces Him " chief among ten 

5 



130 new tabernacle sermons. 

thousand, and the One altogether lovely." my blessed 
Jesus! Light in darkness! The Eock on which I build! 
The Captain of Salvation! My joy! My strength! How 
strange it is that men can not love Thee ! 

The diamond districts of Brazil are carefully guarded, 
and a man does not get in there except by a pass from the 
government; but the love of Christ is a diamond district 
we may all enter, and pick up treasures for eternity. Oh, 
cry for mercy! " To-day, if ye will hear His voice, 
harden not your hearts." There is a way of opposing the 
mercy of God too long, and then there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for judgment and 
fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary. My 
friends, my neighbors, what can I say to induce you to 
attend to this matter — to attend to it now? Time is fly- 
ing, flying — the city clock joining my voice this moment, 
seeming to say to you, " Now is the time! Now is the 
time!" Oh, put it not off! 

Why should I stand here and plead, and you sit there? 
It is your immortal soul. It is a soul that shall never die. 
It is a soul that must soon appear before God for review. 
Why throw away your chance for heaven? Why plunge 
off into darkness when all the gates of glory are open? 
Why become a castaway from God when you can sit upon 
the throne? Why will ye die miserably when eternal life 
is offered you, and it will cost you nothing but just willing- 
ness to accept it? " Come, for all things are now ready." 
Come, Christ is ready, pardon is ready! The Church is 
ready. Heaven is ready. You will never find a more con- 
venient season, if you should live fifty years more, than 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 131 

this very one. Reject this, and j^ou may die in your sins. 
Why do I say this? Is it to frighten your soul? Oh, 
no! It is to persuade you. I show you the peril. I show 
you the escape. "Would I not be a coward beyond all ex- 
cuse, if, believing that this great audience must soon be 
launched into the eternal world, and that all who believe 
in Christ shall be saved, and that all who reject Christ 
will be lost — would I not be the veriest coward on earth to 
hide that truth or to stand before you with a cold, or even 
a placid manner? My dear brethren, now is the day of 
your redemjotion. 

It is very certain that you and I must soon appear be- 
fore God in judgment. We can not escape it. The Bible 
says: " Every eye shall see Him, and they also which 
pierced Him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail 
because of Him. " On that day all our advantages will 
come uj) for our glory or for our discomfiture — every 
prayer, every sermon, every exhortatory remark, every re- 
proof, every call of grace; and while the heavens are roll- 
ing away like a scroll, and the world is being destroyed, 
your destiny and my destiny will be announced. Alas! 
alas! if on that day it is found that we have neglected 
these matters. We may throw them off now. We can 
not then. We will all be in earnest then. But no pardon 
then. No offer of salvation then. No rescue then. 
Driven away in our wickedness — banished, exiled, for- 
ever! 

Have you ever imagined what will be the soliloquy of the 
soul on that day unpardoned, as it looks back upon its past 
life? " Oh/' says the soul, " I had glorious Sabbaths! 



132 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

There was one Sabbath in autumn when I was invited to 
Christ. There was a Sabbath morning when Jesus stood 
and spread out His arm and invited me to His holy heart. 
I refused Him. I have destroyed myself. I have no one 
else to blame. Euin complete! Darkness unpitying, 
deep, eternal! I am lost! Notwithstanding all the oppor- 
tunities I have had of being saved, I am lost! Thou 
long-suffering Lord God Almighty, I am lost! day of 
judgment, I am lost! father, mother, brother, sister, 
child in glory, I am lost!" And then as the tide goes 
out, your soul goes out with it — further from God, further 
from happiness, and I hear your voice fainter, and 
fainter, and fainter: " Lost! Lost! Lost! Lost! 
Lost!" ye dying, yet immortal men, " seek the Lord 
while He may be found." 

But I want you to take the hint of the text that I have 
no time to dwell on — the hint that there is a time when 
He can not be found. There is a man in Xew York, 
eighty years of age, who said to a clergyman who came 
in, "Do you think that a man at eighty years of age can 
get pardoned?" " Oh, yes," said the clergyman. The 
old man said: " I can't; when I was twenty years of age 
— I am now eighty years — the Spirit of God came to my 
soul, and I felt the importance of attending to these 
things, but I put it off. I rejected God, and since then I 
have had no feeling." "Well," said the minister, 
" wouldn't you like to have me pray with you?" " Yes," 
replied the old man, "but it will do no good. You can 
pray with me if you like to." The minister knelt down 
and prayed, and commended the man's soul to God. It 



A MOMENTOUS QUEST. 133 

seemed to have no effect upon him. After awhile the last 
hour of the man's life came, and through his delirium a 
spark of intelligence seemed to flash, and with his last 
breath he said; "I shall never be forgiven!" "0 seek 
the Lord while He may be found." 



THE GREAT ASSIZE. 

DOCTOR TALMAGE'S SERMON, PREACHED AT CORK, IRELAND, 
SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 6th, 1885. 



" When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy 
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: 
and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate 
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
goats." — Matthew xxv: 31, 32. 

Half-way between Chamouny, Switzerland, and Mar- 
tigny, I reined in the horse on which I was riding, and 
looked off upon the most wonderful natural amphitheater 
of valley and mountain and rock, and I said to my com- 
panion, " What an appropriate place this would be for the 
last judgment. Yonder overhanging rock the place for 
the judgment seat. These galleries of surrounding hills 
occupied by attendant angels. This vast valley, sweeping 
miles this way and miles that, the audience-room for all 
nations." But sacred geography does not point out the 
place. Yet we know that somewhere, some time, some- 
how, an audience will be gathered together stupendous be- 
yond all statistics, and just as certainly as you and I make 
up a part of this audience to-day, we will make up a part 
of that audience on that day. " 

(134) 



THE GREAT ASSIZE. 135 

A common sense of justice in every man's heart de- 
mands that there shall be some great winding-up day, in 
which that which is now inexplicable shall be explained. 

Why did that good man suffer, and that bad man pros- 
per? You say, " I don't know, but I must know." Why 
is that good Christian woman dying of what is called a 
spider cancer, while that daughter of folly sits wrapped in 
luxury, ease, and health? You say, " I don't know, but I 
must know." There are so many wrongs to be righted 
that if there were not some great righting-up day in the 
presence of all ages, there would be an outcry against God 
from which His glory would never recover. If God did 
not at last try the nations, the nations would try Him. 
We are, therefore, ready for the announcement of the text. 
The world never saw Christ except in disguise. If once 
when He was on earth He had let out His glory, instead of 
the blind eyes being healed, all visions would have been ex- 
tinguished. Xo human eye could have endured it. And 
instead of bringing the dead to life, all around about him 
would have been the slain under that overpowering efful- 
gence. Disguise of human flesh. Disguise of seamless 
robe. Disguise of sandal. Disguise of voice. From 
Bethlehem caravansary to mausoleum in the rock, a com- 
plete disguise. 

But on the day of which I speak the Son of Man will 
oonie in His glory. Xo hiding of luster. Xo sheathing of 
strength. Xo suppression of grandeur. Xo wrapping out 
of sight of the Godhead. Any fifty of the most brilliant 
sunsets that you ever saw on land or sea would be dim as 
compared with the cerulean appearance on that day when 



13 G XEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Christ rolls through, and rolls on, and rolls down in His 
glory. The air will be all abloom with His presence, and 
everything from horizon to horizon aflame with His splen- 
dor. 

Elijah rode up the sky-steep in a chariot, the wheels of 
whirling fire and the horses of galloping fire, and the 
charioteer drawing reins of fire on bits of fire; but Christ 
will need no such equipage, for the law of gravitation will 
be laid aside, and the natural elements will be laid aside, 
and Christ will descend swiftly enough to make speedy 
arrival, but slowly enough to allow the gaze of millions of 
spectators. In his glory! Glory of form, glory of omnipo- 
tence, glory of holiness, glory of justice, glory of love. In 
His glory! An unveiled, an uncovered God descending to 
meet the human race in an interview which will be pro- 
longed only for a few hours, and yet which shall settle all 
the past and all the present and all the future, and be 
closed before the end of that day, which will close, not with 
setting sun, but with the destruction of the planet as a 
snuffers takes off the top of a burned wick. 

It is a solemn time in a court-room when there is an im- 
portant case on hand, and the judge of the Supreme Court 
enters, and he sits down, and with gavel strikes on the 
desk commanding bar and jury and witnesses and audience 
into silence. All voices are hushed, all heads are uncov- 
ered. But how much more impressive when Christ shall 
take the judgment seat on the last day of the last week of 
the last month of the last year of the world's existence, 
and with gavel of thunder-bolt shall smite the mountains, 
commanding all the land and all the sea into silence. 



THE GREAT ASSIZE. 137 

Can you have any doubt about who it is on the seat on 
the judgment day? Better make investigation, to see 
whether there are any scars about Him that reveal His per- 
son. Apparel may change. You can not always tell by 
apparel. But scars will tell the story after all else fails. I 
find under His left arm a scar, and on His right hand a 
scar, and on His left hand a scar, and on His right foot a 
scar, and on His left foot a scar. Oh, yes, He is the Son 
of Man in His glory. Every mark of wound now a badge 
of victory, every ridge showing the fearful gash now telling 
the story of pain and sacrifice which He suffered in behalf 
of the human race. 

But what is all that commotion and flutter, and surging 
to and fro above Him and on either side of Him? It is a 
detailed regiment of heaven, a constabulary angelic, sent 
forth to take part in that scene, and to execute the man- 
dates that shall be issued. Ten regiments, a hundred regi- 
ments, a thousand regiments of angels; for on that day 
all heaven will be emptied of its inhabitants to let them 
attend the scene. All the holy angels.. From what a cen- 
ter to what a circumference. Widening out and widening 
out, and higher up and higher up. Wings interlocking 
wings. Galleries of cloud above galleries of cloud, all filled 
with the faces of angels come to listen and come to watch, 
and come to help on that day for which all other days were 
made. Who are those two taller and more conspicuous 
angels? The one is Michael, who is the commander of all 
those who come out to destroy sin. The other is Gabriel, 
who is announced as commander of all those who come 
forth to help the righteous. Who is that mighty angel 



138 NEW TABERNACLE SEKMONS. 

near the throne? That is the resurrection angel, his lips 
still aquiver and his cheek aflush with the blast that shat- 
tered the cemeteries and woke the dead. Who is that 
other great angel, with dark and overshadowing brow? 
That is the one who in one night, by one flap of his wing, 
turned one hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennach- 
erib's host into corpses. 

Who are those bright immortals near the throne, their 
faces partly turned toward each other as though about to 
sing? Oh, they are the Bethlehem chanters of the first 
Christmas night! Who are this other group standing so 
near the throne? They are the Saviour's especial body- 
guard, which hovered over Him in the wilderness and ad- 
ministered to Him in the hour of martyrdom, and heaved 
away the rock of His sarcophagus, and escorted Him up- 
ward on Ascension Day, now appropriately escorting Him 
down. Divine glory flanked on both sides by angelic radi- 
ance. 

But now lower your eye from the divine and angelic to 
the human. The entire human race is present. All 
nations, says my text. Before that time the American Re- 
public, the English Government, the French Republic, all 
modern modes of government may be obliterated for some- 
thing better; but all nations, whether dead or alive, will be 
brought up into that assembly. Thebes and Tyre and 
Babylon and Greece and Borne as wide awake in that as- 
sembly as though they had never slumbered amid the dead 
nations. Europe, Asia, Africa, [North and South America, 
and all the nineteenth century, the eighteenth century, the 
twelfth century, the tenth century, the fourth century — all 



THE GREAT ASSIZE. 139 

centuries present. Not one being that ever drew the 
breath of life but will be in that assembly. 

No other audience a thousandth part as large. No other 
audience a millionth part as large. No human eye could 
look across it. Wing of albatross and falcon and eagle not 
strong enough to fly over it. A congregation, I verily be- 
lieve, not assembled on any continent, because no continent 
would be large enough to hold it. But, as the Bible in- 
timates, in the air. The law of gravitation unanchored, 
the world moved out of- its place. As now sometimes on 
earth a great tent is spread for some great convention, so 
over that great audience of the judgment shall be lifted the 
blue canopy of the sky, and underneath it for floor the air 
made buoyant by the hand of Almighty God. An archi- 
tecture of atmospheric galleries strong enough to hold up 
worlds. Surely the two arms of God's almightiness are two 
pillars strong enough to hold up any auditorium. 

But that audience is not to remain in session long. 
Most audiences on earth after an hour or two adjourn. 
Sometimes in court-rooms an audience will tarry four or 
five hours, but then it adjourns. So this audience spoken 
of in the text will adjourn. My text says, " He will 
separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth the 
sheep from the goats." 

" No," says my Universalist friend, " let them all stay 
together." But the text says, " He shall separate them." 
" No," say the kings of this world, "let men have their 
choice, and if they prefer monarchical institutions, let 
them go together, and if they prefer republican institu- 
tions, let them go together." " No," say the convention- 



140 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

alities of this world, " let all those who moved in what are 
called high circles go together, and all those who on earth 
moved in low circles go together. The rich together, the 
poor together, the wise together, the ignorant together. " 
Ah! no. Do you not notice in that assembly the king is 
without his scepter, and the soldier without his uniform, 
and the bishop without his pontifical ring, and the million- 
aire without his certificates of stock, and the convict with- 
out his chain, and the beggar without his rags, and the 
illiterate without his bad orthography, and all of us with- 
out any distinction of earthly inequality? So I take it 
from that as well as from my text that the mere accident 
of position in this world will do nothing toward deciding 
the questions of that very great day. 

" He will separate them as a shepherd divide th the sheej) 
from the goats." The sheep, the cleanliest of creatures, 
here made a symbol of those who have all their sins washed 
away in the fountain of redeeming mercy. The goat, one 
of the filthiest of creatures, here a type of those who in the 
last judgment will be found never to have had any divine 
ablution. Division according to character. Xot only 
character outside, but character inside. Character of 
heart, character of choice, character of allegiance, char- 
acter of affection, character inside as well as character out- 
side. 

In many cases it will be a complete and immediate re- 
versal of all earthly conditions. Some who in this world 
wore patched apparel will take on raiment lustrous as a 
summer noon. Some who occupied a palace will take a 
dungeon. Division regardless of all earthly caste, and 



THE GKEAT ASSIZE. 141 

some who were down will be up, and some who were up 
will be down. Oh, what a shattering of conventionalities! 
What an upheaval of all social rigidities, what a turning of 
the wheel of earthly condition, a thousand revolutions in a 
second! Division of all nations, of all ages, not by the 
figure 9, nor the figure 8, nor the figure 7, nor the figure 
6, nor the figure 5, nor the figure 4; but by the figure 2. 

Two! Two characters, two destinies, two estates, two 
dominions, two eternities, a tremendous, an all-comprehen- 
sive, an all-decisive, and everlasting two! 

I sometimes think that the figure of the book that shall 
be opened allows us to forget the thing signified by the 
symbol. Where is the book-binder that could make a 
volume large enough to contain the names of all the peo- 
ple who have ever lived? Besides that, the calling of such 
a roll would take more than fifty years, more than a hun- 
dred years, and the judgment is to be consummated in less 
time than passes between sunrise and sunset. Ah! my 
friends, the leaves of that book of judgment are not made 
out of paper, but of memory. One leaf in every human 
heart. You have known persons who were near drowning, 
but they were afterward resuscitated, and they have told 
you that in the two or three minutes between the accident 
aud the resuscitation, all their past life flashed before them 
— all they had ever thought, all they had ever done, all 
they had ever seen, in an instant came to them. The 
memory never loses anything. It is only a folded leaf. It 
is only a closed book. 

Though you be an octogenarian, though you be a non- 
agenarian, all the thoughts and acts of your life are in your 



14:2 NEW TABEKNACLE SEEMONS. 

mind, whether you recall them now or not, just as Macau- 
lay's history is in two volumes, although the volumes may 
be closed, and you can not see a word of them, and will 
not until they are opened. As in the case of the drowning 
man, the volume of memory was partly open, or the leaf 
partly unrolled; in the case of the judgment the entire 
book will be opened, so that everything will be displayed 
from preface to appendix. 

You have seen self -registering instruments which record- 
ed how many revolutions they had made and what work 
they had done, so the manufacturer could come days after 
and look at the instrument and find just how many revolu- 
tions had been made, or how much work had been accom- 
plished. So the human mind is a self -registering instru- 
ment, and it records all its past movements. Now that 
leaf, that all-comprehensive leaf in your mind and mine 
this moment, the leaf of judgment, brought out under the 
flash of the judgment throne, you can easily see how all the 
past of our lives in an instant will be seen. And so great 
and so resplendent will be the light of that throne that not 
only this leaf in my heart and that leaf in your heart will 
be revealed at a flash, but all the leaves will be opened, 
and you will read not only your own character and your 
own history, but the character and history of others. 

In a military encampment the bugle sounded in one way 
means one thing, and sounded in another way it means 
another thing. Bugle sounded in one way means, " Pre- 
pare for sudden attack." Bugle sounded in another way 
means, " To your tents, and let all the lights be put out. " 
I have to tell you, my brother, that the trumpet of the Old 



THE GREAT ASSIZE. 143 

Testament, the trumpet that was carried in the armies of 
olden times, and the trumpet on the walls in olden times, 
in the last great day will give significant reverberation. 
Old, worn-out, and exhausted Time, having marched 
across decades and centuries and ages, will halt, and the 
sun and the moon and the stars will halt with it. The 
trumpet! the trumpet! 

Peal the first: Under its power the sea will stretch itself 
out dead, the white foam on the lip, in its crystal sarcoph- 
agus, and the mountains will stagger and reel and stum- 
ble, and fall into the valleys never to rise. Under one 
puff of that last cyclone all the candles of the sky will be 
blown out. The trumpet! the trumpet! 

Peal the second: The alabaster halls of the air will be 
filled with those who will throng up from all the cemeteries 
of all the ages — from Greyfriar's Churchyard and Roman 
Catacomb, from Westminster Abbey and from the coral 
crypts of oceanic cave, and some will rend off the bandage 
of Egy23tian mummy, and others will remove from their 
brow the garland of green sea-weed. From the north and 
the south and the east and the west they come. The dead! 
The trumpet! the trumpet! 

Peal the third: Amid surging clouds and the roar of 
attendant armies of heaven, the Lord comes through, and 
there are lightnings and thunder-bolts, and an earthquake, 
and a hallelujah, and a wailing. The trumpet! the trum- 
pet! 

Peal the fourth: All the records of human life will be 
revealed. The leaf containing the pardoned sin, the leaf con- 
taining the unpardoned sin. Some clapping hands with joy, 



141 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

some grinding their teeth with rage, and all the forgotten 
past becomes a vivid present. The trumpet! the trumpet! 

Peal the last: The audience breaks up. The great trial 
is ended. The high court of heaven adjourns. The audi- 
ence hie themselves to their two termini. They rise, they 
rise! They sink, they sink! Then the blue tent of the 
sky will be lifted and folded up and put away. Then the 
auditorium of atmospheric galleries will be melted. Then 
the folded wings of attendant angels will be spread for up- 
ward flight. The fiery throne of judgment will become a 
dim and a vanishing cloud. The conflagration of divine 
and angelic magnificence will roll back and off. The day 
for which all other days are made has closed, and the world 
has burned down, and the last cinder has gone out, and an 
angel flying on errand from world to world will poise long 
enough over the dead earth to chant the funeral litany as 
he cries, " Ashes to ashes!" k 

That judgment leaf in your heart I seize hold of this 
moment for cancellation. In your city halls the great book 
of mortgages has a large margin, so that when the mort- 
gagor has paid the full amount to the mortgagee, the offi- 
cer of the law comes, and he puts down on that margin the 
payment and the cancellation; and though that mortgage 
demanded vast thousands before, now it is null and void. 
So I have to tell you that that leaf in my heart and in your 
heart, that leaf of judgment, that all-comprehensive leaf, 
has a wide margin for cancellation. 

There is only one hand in all the universe that can touch 
that margin. That hand this moment lifted to make the 
record null and void forever. It may be a trembling 



THE GKEAT ASSIZE. 145 

hand, for it is a wounded hand, the nerves were cut and 
the muscles were lacerated. That record on that leaf was 
made in the black ink of condemnation; but if cancella- 
tion take place, it will be made in the red ink of sacri- 
fice. judgment-bound brother and sister! let Christ this 
moment bring to that record complete and glorious can- 
cellation. This moment, in an outburst of impassioned 
prayer, ask for it. You think it is the fluttering of your 
heart. Oh, no! it is the fluttering of that leaf, that judg- 
ment leaf. 

I ask you not to take from your iron safe your last will 
and testament, but I ask for something of more importance 
than that. I ask you not to take from your private papers 
that letter so sacred that you have put it away from all 
human eyesight, but I ask you for something of more 
meaning than that. That leaf, that judgment leaf in my 
heart, that judgment leaf in your heart, which will decide 
our condition after this world shall have five thousand mill- 
ion years been swept out the heavens, an extinct planet, 
and time itself will be so long past that on the ocean of 
eternity it will seem only as now seems a ripple on the At- 
lantic. 

When the goats in vile herd start for the barren mount- 
ains of death, and the sheej) in fleeces of snowy whiteness 
and bleating with joy move up the terraced hills to join the 
lambs already playing in the high pastures of celestial alti- 
tude, oh, may you and I be close by the Shejjherd's crook! 
" When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all 
the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the 
throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all 



146 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as 
a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats/ ' » » 

Oh, that leaf, that one leaf in my heart, that one leaf in 
your heart! That leaf of judgment! Oh, those two tre- 
mendous words at the last, " Come!" " Go!" As though 
the overhanging heavens were the cup of a great bell, and 
all the stars were welded into a silvery tongue and swung 
from side to side until it struck, " Come!" As though all 
the great guns of eternal disaster were discharged at once, 
and they boomed forth in one resounding cannonade of 
" Go!" Arithmetical sum in simple division. Eternity 
the dividend. The figure two the divisor. Your unalter- 
able destiny the quotient. 



THE ROAD TO THE CITY. 



" And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be 
called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but 
it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not 
err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall 
go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall 
walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come 
to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall 
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." — 
Isaiah xxxv: 8-10. 

Theke are hundreds of people in this house this morn- 
ing who want to find the right road. You sometimes see 
a person halting at cross roads, and you can tell by his 
looks that he wishes to ask a question as to what direction 
he had better take. And I stand in your presence this 
morning conscious of the fact that there are many of you 
here who realize that there are a thousand wrong roads, 
but only one right one; and I take it for granted that you 
have come in to ask which one it is. Here is one road 
that opens widely, but I have not much faith in it. There 
are a great many expensive toll-gates scattered all along 
that way. Indeed at every rod you must pay in tears, or 
pay in genuflexions, or pay in flagellations. On that 
road, if you get through it at all, you have to pay your 

(147) 



118 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

own way; and since this differs so much from what I have 
heard in regard to the right way, I believe it is the wrong 
way. 

Here is another road. On either side of it are houses of 
sinful entertainment, and invitations to come in, and dine 
and rest; but, from the looks of the people who stand on 
the piazza I am very certain that it is the wrong house and 
the wrong way. Here is another road. It is very beauti- 
ful and macadamized. The horses' hoofs clatter and ring, 
and they who ride over it spin along the highway, until 
suddenly they find that the road breaks over an embank- 
ment, and they try to halt, and they saw the bit in the 
mouth of the fiery steed, and cry " Ho! ho!" But it is 
too late, and — crash ! — they go over the embankment. We 
shall turn, this morning, and see if we can not find a 
different kind of a road. 

You have heard of the Aj>pian Way. It was three hun- 
dred and fifty miles long. It was twenty-four feet wide, 
and on either side the road was a path for foot passengers. 
It was made out of rocks cut in hexagonal shape and fitted 
together. What a road it must have been! Made of 
smooth, hard rock, three hundred and fifty miles long. 
No wonder that in the construction of it the treasures of a 
whole empire were exhausted. Because of invaders, and 
the elements, and time — the old conqueror who tears up a 
road as he goes over it — there is nothing left of that 
structure excepting a ruin. But I have this morning to 
tell you of a road built before the Apj>ian Way, and yet it 
is as good as when first constructed. Millions of souls 
have gone over it. Millions more will come. 



THE ROAD TO THE CITY. 149 

"The prophets and apostles, too, 

Pursued this road while here below; 
We therefore will, without dismay 

Still walk in Christ, the good old way." 

" An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be 
called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over 
it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though 
fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor 
any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be 
found there; but the redeemed shall walk there; and the 
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with 
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall 
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 
away!" 

I. First, this road of the text is the King's highway. 
In the diligence you dash over the Bernard pass of the 
Alps, mile after mile, and there is not so much as a pebble 
to jar the wheels. You go over bridges which cross chasms 
that make you hold your breath; under projecting rock; 
along by dangerous precipices; through tunnels adrip with 
the meltings of the glaciers; and, perhaps for the first 
time, learn the majesty of a road built and supported by 
government authority. Well, my Lord the King decided 
to build a highway from earth to heaven. It should span 
all the chasms of human wretchedness; it should tunnel all 
the mountains of earthly difficulty; it should be wide 
enough and strong enough to hold fifty thousand millions 
of the human race, if so many of them should ever be 
born. It should be blasted out of the " Rock of Ages," 



150 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

and cemented with the blood of the Cross, and be lifted 
amid the shouting of angels and the execration of devils. 

The King sent His Son to build that road. He put 
head and hand and heart to it, and, after the road was 
completed, waved His blistered hand over the way, crying, 
ci It is finished!" Xapoleon paid fifteen million francs for 
the building of the Simplon Road, that his cannon might 
go over for the devastation of Italy; but our King, at a 
greater expense, has built a road for a different purpose, 
that the banners of heavenly dominion might come down 
over it, and all the redeemed of earth travel up over it. 

Being a King's highway, of course it is well built. 
Bridges splendidly arched and buttressed have given way 
and crushed the passengers who attempted to cross them. 
But Christ, the King, would build no such thing as that. 
The work done, He mounts the chariot of His love, and 
multitudes mount with Him, and He drives on and up the 
steep of heaven amid the plaudits of gazing worlds! The 
work is done — well done — gloriously done — magnificently 
done. 

II. Still further: this road spoken of is a clean road. 

Alany a fine road has become miry and foul because it 
has not been properly cared for; but my text says the un- 
clean shall not walk on this one. Boom on either side to 
throw away your sins. Indeed, if you want to carry them 
along, you are not on the right road. That bridge will 
break, those overhanging rocks will fall, the night will 
come down, leaving you at the mercy of the mountain 
bandits, and at the very next turn of the road you will per- 
ish. But if vou are reallv on this clean road of which I have 



THE ROAD TO THE CITY. 151 

Deen speaking, then you will stop ever and anon to wash in 
!;he water that stands in the basin of the eternal rock. Ay, 
at almost every step of the journey you will be crying out: 
" Create within me a clean heart!" If you have no such 
aspirations as that, it proves that you have mistaken your 
way; and if you will only look up and see the finger-board 
above your head, you may read upon it the words: 
" There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the 
end thereof is death." Without holiness no man shall see 
the Lord; and if you have any idea that you can carry 
along your sins, your lusts, your worldliness, and yet get 
to the end of the Christian race, you are so awfully mis- 
taken that, in the name of God, this morning I shatter the 
delusion. 

III. Still further, the road spoken of is a plain road. 
" The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err there- 
in." That is, if a man is three fourths an idiot, he can 
find this road just as well as if he were a philosopher. The 
imbecile boy, the laughing-stock of the street, and fol- 
lowed by a mob hooting at him, has only just to knock 
once at the gate of heaven, and it swings open: while 
there has been many a man who can lecture about pneu- 
matics, and chemistry, and tell the story of Earraday's 
theory of electrical polarization, and yet has been shut out 
of heaven. There has been many a man who stood in an 
observatory and swept the heavens with his telescope, and 
yet has not been able to see the Morning Star. Many a 
man has been familiar with all the higher branches of 
mathematics, and yet could not do the simple sum, 
' ' What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 



152 STEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

and lose his own soul?" Many a man lias been a fine 
reader of tragedies and poems, and yet could not " read 
his title clear to mansions in the skies." Many a man has 
botanized across the continent, and yet not' know the 
"Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." But if 
one shall come in the right spirit, crying the way to 
heaven, he will find it a plain way. The pardon is plain. 
The peace is plain. Everything is plain. 

He who tries to get on the road to heaven through the 
New Testament teaching will get on beautifully. He who 
goes through philosophical discussion will not get on at 
all. Christ says: " Come to Me, and I will take all your 
sins away, and I will take all your troubles away." Now 
what is the use of my discussing it any more? Is not that 
plain? If you wanted to go to Albany, and I pointed you 
out a highway thoroughly laid out, would I be wise in de- 
taining you by a geological discussion about the gravel you 
will pass over, or a physiological discussion about the 
muscles yon will have to bring into play? No. After this 
Bible has pointed you the way to heaven, is it wise for me 
to detain you with any discussion about the nature of the 
human will, or whether the atonement is limited or un- 
limited? There is the road — go on it. It is a plain way. 

" This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners." And that is you and that is me. Any little child 
here can understand this as well as I can. " Unless you 
become as a little child, you can not see the kingdom of 
God. " If you are saved, it will not be as a philosopher, 
it will be as a little child. " Of such is the kingdom of 



THE ftOAD TO THE CITY. 153 

Heaven." Unless you get the spirit of little children, you 
will never come out at their glorious destiny. 

IV. Still further: this road to heaven is a safe road. 
Sometimes the traveler in those ancient highways would 
think himself perfectly secure, not knowing there was a 
lion by the way, burying his head deep between his paws, 
and then, when the right moment came, under the fearful 
spring the man's life was gone, and there w r as a mauled 
carcass by the roadside. But, says my text, " No lion 
shall be there." I wish I could make you feel, this morn- 
ing, your entire security. I tell you plainly that one min- 
ute after a man has become a child of God, he is as safe as 
though he had been ten thousand years in heaven. He 
may slip, he may slide, he may stumble; but he can not be 
destroyed. Kept by the power of God, through faith, 
unto complete salvation. Everlastingly safe. 

The severest trial to which you can subject a Christian 
man is to kill him, and that is glory. In other words, the 
worst thing that can happen a child of God is heaven. 
The body is only the old slippers that he throws aside just 
before putting on the sandals of light. His soul, you can 
not hurt it. No fires can consume it. No floods can 
drown it. No devils can capture it. 

" Firm and unmoved are they 
Who rest their souls on God; 
Fixed as the ground where David stood, 
Or where the ark abode." 

His soul is safe. His reputation is safe. Everything is 
safe. " But," you say, " suppose his store burns up?" 



154 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Why, then, it will be only a change of investments from 
earthly to heavenly securities. " But," you say, " sup- 
pose his name goes down under the hoof of scorn and con- 
tempt?" The name will be so much brighter in glory. 
" Suppose his physical health fails?" God will pour into 
him the floods of everlasting health, and it will not make 
any difference. Earthly subtraction is heavenly addition. 
The tears of earth are the crystals of heaven. As they 
take rags and tatters and put them through the paper- 
mill, and they come out beautiful white sheets of paper, 
so, often, the rags of earthly destitution, under the 
cylinders of death, come out a white scroll upon which 
shall be written eternal emancipation. 

There was one passage of Scripture, the force of which I 
never understood until one day at Chamounix, with Mont 
Blanc on one side, and Montanvent on the other, I opened 
my Bible and read: " As the mountains are around about 
Jerusalem, so the Lord is around about them that fear 
Him." The surroundings were an omnipotent com- 
mentary. 

"Though troubles assail, and dangers affright; 
Though friends should all fail, and foes all unite; 
Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide, 
The Scriptures assure us the Lord will provide." 

V. Still further: the road spoken of is a pleasant road. 
God gives a bond of indemnity against all evil to every 
man that treads it. "All things work together for good 
to those who love God. " No weapon formed against them 
can prosper. That is the bond, signed, sealed, and de- 



THE ROAD TO THE CITY. 155 

in ered by the President of the whole universe. What is 
the use of your fretting, child of God, about food? 
" Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do 
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. " And will He take care of the sparrow, 
will He take care of the hawk, and let you die? What is 
the use of your fretting about clothes? " Consider the 
lilies of the field. Shall He not much more clothe you, 
ye of little faith?" What is the use worrying for fear 
something will happen to your home? " He blesseth the 
habitation of the just." What is the use of your fretting 
lest you will be overcome of temptations? " God is faith- 
ful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
•are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to 
escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 

this King's highway! Trees of life on either side, 
bending over until their branches interlock and drop mid- 
way their fruit and shade. Houses of entertainment on 
either side the road for poor pilgrims. Tables spread with 
a feast of good things, and walls adorned with apples of 
gold in pictures of silver. I start out on this King's high- 
way, and I find a harper, and I say: " What is your 
name?" The harper makes no response, but leaves me to 
guess, as, with his eyes toward heaven and his hand upon 
the trembling strings this tune comes rippling on the air: 
" The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I 
fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall 
I be afraid?" I go a little further on the same road and 
meet a trumpeter of heaven, and I say: " Haven't you 
got some music for a tired pilgrim?" And wiping his lip 



156 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

and taking a long breath, he puts his mouth to the trum- 
pet and pours forth this strain: " They shall hunger no 
more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the 
sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb winch is in 
the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains 
of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes." I go a little distance further on the same road, 
and I meet a maiden of Israel. She has no harp, but she 
has cymbals. They look as if they had rusted from sea- 
spray; and I say to the maiden of Israel: " Have you no 
song for a tired pilgrim?" And like the clang of victors' 
shields the cymbals clap as Miriam begins to discourse: 
" Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; 
the horse and the rider hath He thrown into the sea." 
And then I see a white-robed group. They come bound- 
ing toward me, and I say: " Who are they? The hap- 
piest, and the brightest, and the fairest in all heaven — who 
are they?" And the answer comes: " These are they who 
came out of great tribulations, and had their robes washed 
and made white with the blood of the Lamb." 

I pursue this subject only one step further. What is the 
terminus? I do not care how fine a road you may put me 
on, I want to know where it conies out. My text declares 
it: "The redeemed of the Lord come to Zion." You 
know what Zion was. That was the King's palace. It 
was a mountain fastness. It was impregnable. And so 
heaven is the fastness of the universe. Xo howitzer has 
long enough range to shell those towers. Let all the bat- 
teries of earth and hell blaze away; they can not break in 
those gates. Gibraltar was taken, Sebastopol was taken, 



THE ROAD TO THE CITY. 157 

Babylon fell; but these walls of heaven shall never surren- 
der either to human or Satanic besiegement. The Lord 
God Almighty is the defense of it. Great capital of the 
universe! Terminus of the King's highway! 

Doctor Dick said that, among other things, he thought 
in heaven we should study chemistry, and geometry, and 
conic sections. Southey thought that in heaven he would 
have the pleasure of seeing Chaucer and Shakespeare. 
Now, Doctor Dick may have his mathematics for all 
eternity, and Southey his Shakespeare. Give me Christ 
and my old friends — that is all the heaven I want, that is 
heaven enough for me. garden of light, whose leaves 
never wither, and whose fruits never fail! banquet of 
God, whose sweetness never palls the taste, and whose 
guests are kings forever! city of light, whose walls are 
salvation, and whose gates are praise! palace of rest, 
where God is the monarch and everlasting ages the length 
of His reign ! song louder than the surf -beat of many 
waters, yet soft as the whisper of cherubim! 

my heaven! When my last wound is healed, when 
the last heart-break is ended, when the last tear of earthly 
sorrow is wiped away, and when the redeemed of the Lord 
shall come to Zion, then let all the harpers take down 
their harps, and all the trumpeters take down their trum- 
pets, and all across heaven there be chorus of morning 
stars, chorus of white-robed victors, chorus of martyrs 
from under the throne, chorus of ages, chorus of worlds, 
and there be but one song sung, and but one name spoken, 
and but one throne honored — that of Jesus only. 



THE RANSOMLESS. 



"Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great 
ransom can not deliver thee." — Job xxxvi: 18. 

Tkouble makes some men mad. It was so with Job. 
He had lost his property, he had lost his physical health, 
he had lost his dear children, and the losses had led to 
exasperation instead of any spiritual profit. I suppose 
that he was in the condition that many are now in who sit 
before me. There are those here whose fortunes have 
begun to flap their wings, as though to fly away. There is 
a hollow cough in some of your dwellings. There is a 
subtraction of comfort and happiness, and you feel disgust- 
ed with the world, and impatient with many events that 
are transpiring in your history, and you are in the condi- 
tion in which Job was when the words of my text accosted 
him: "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke* 
and then a ransom can not deliver thee." 

I propose to show you that sometimes God suddenly re- 
moves from us our gospel opportunities, and that, when 
He has done so, our case is ransomless. " Beware lest He 
take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom car 
not deliver thee. " ■ ' 

I. Sometimes the stroke comes in the removal of the in 
telle ct. 

(158) 



THE KANSOMLESS. 150 

" Oh,," says some man, " as long as I keep my mind I 
can afford to adjourn religion." But suppose you do not 
keep it? A fever, the hurling of a missile, the falling of a 
brick from a scaffolding, the accidental discharge of a gun 
— and 3^our mind is gone. If you have ever been in an 
anatomical room, and have examined the human brain, 
you know what a delicate organ it is. And can it be possi- 
ble that our eternity is dependent upon the healthy action 
of that which can be so easily destroyed? 

" Oh," says some one, " you don't know how strong a 
mind I have." I reply: Losses, accident, bereavement, 
and sickness may shipwreck the best physical or mental 
condition. There are those who have been ten years in 
lunatic asylums who had as good a mind as you. While 
they had their minds they neglected God, and when their 
intellect went, with it went their last opportunity for 
heaven. Now they are not responsible for what they do, 
or for what they say; but in the last day they will be held 
responsible for what they did when they were mentally 
well; and if, on that day, a soul should say: " Oh, God, I 
was demented, and I had no responsibility," God will say: 
" Yes, you were demented; but there were long years 
when you were not demented. That was your chance for 
heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch 
say, a little " daft," nevertheless having grace in the 
heart; better be like poor Richard Hampson, the Cornish 
fool, whose biography has just appeared in England — a 
silly man he was, yet bringing souls to Jesus Christ by 
scores and scores — giving an account of his own conver- 
sion, when he said: " The mob got after me, and I lost 



160 NEW TABEBNACLE SEBMOKS. 

my hat, and climbed up by a meat-stand, in order that I 
might not be trampled under foot, and while I was there, 
my heart got on fire with love toward those who were 
chasing me, and, springing to my feet, I began to exhort 
and to pray." Oh, my God, let me be in the last, last 
day the Cornish fool, rather than have the best intellect 
God ever created unillumined by the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ! 

Consider what an uncertain possession you have in your 
intellect, when there are so many things around to destroy 
it; and beware, lest before you use it in making the relig- 
ious choice, God takes it away with a stroke. I know a 
good many of my friends who are putting off religion until 
the last hour. They say when they get sick they will at- 
tend to it, but generally the intellect is beclouded; and oh; 
what a doleful thing it is to stand by a dying bed, and talk 
to a man about his soul, and feel, from what you see of 
the motion of his head, and the glare of his eye, and from 
what you hear of the jargon of his lips, that he does not 
understand what you are saying to him. I have stood be- 
side the death-bed of a man who had lived a sinful life, and 
was as unprepared for eternity as it is possible for a man 
to be, and I tried to make him understand my pastoral 
errand; but all in vain. He could not understand it, and 
so he died. 

Oh! ye who are putting off until the sick hour prepara- 
tion for eternity, let me tell you that in all probabilit}^, you 
will not be able in your last hour to attend to it at all. 
There are a great many people who say they will repent 
on the death-bed. 



THE KANSOMLESS. 161 

I have no doubt there are many who have repented on 
the death-bed, but I think it is the exception. Albert 
Barnes, who was one of the coolest of men, and gave no 
rash statistics, said thus: that in a ministry of nearly half 
a century — he was over seventy when he went up to glory 
—he had known a great many people who said they re- 
pented on the dying bed, but, unexpectedly to themselves, 
got well; and he says, How many of those, do you sup- 
pose, who thought it was their dying bed, and who, after 
they repented on that dying bed, having got well, lived 
consistently, showing that it was real repentance, and not 
mock repentance — how many? not one! not one! 

II. Again: this stroke may come to you in the with- 
drawal of God's spirit. 

I see people before me who were, twenty years ago, 
serious about their souls. They are not now. They have 
no interest in what I am saying. They will never have 
any anxiety in what any minister of the Gospel says about 
their souls. Their time seems to have passed. I know a 
man, seventy-five years of age, who, in early life, became 
almost a Christian, but grieved away the spirit of God, and 
he has never thought earnestly since, and he can not be 
roused. I do not believe he will be roused until eternity 
flashes on his astonished vision. 

It does seem as if sometimes, in quite early life, the 
Holy Spirit moves upon a heart, and being grieved away 
and rejected, never comes back. You say that is all im- 
aginary? A letter, the address of which I will not give, 
dated last Monday morning, came to me on Tuesday, say- 
ing this: " Your sermon last night (that is, last Sabbath 

6 



162 KEW TABEKKACLE SEE310KS. 

night) did not fit my case, although I believe it did all 
others in the Academy; but your sermon of a week ago 
did fit my case, for I am ' past feeling/ I am not 
ashamed to be a Christian. I would as soon be known to 
be a Christian as anything else. Indeed, I wish I was, but 
I have not the least power to become one. Don't you 
know that with some persons there is a tide in their 
spiritual natures which, if taken at the flood, leads on to 
salvation? Such a tide I felt two years ago. I want you 
to pray for me, not that I may be led to Christ — for that 
prayer would not be answered — but that I may be ke]^t 
from the temptation to suicide!" 

What I had to say to the author of that I said in a pri- 
vate letter; but what I have to say to this audience is: 
Beware lest you grieve the Holy Ghost, and He be gone, 
and never return. Next Wednesday, at two or three 
o' clock, a Cunard steamer will put out from Jersey City 
wharf for Liverpool. After it has gone one hour, and the 
vessel is down by the Narrows, or beyond, go out on the 
Jersey City wharf, and wave your hand, and shout, and 
ask that steamer to come back to the wharf. "Will it? 
Yes, sooner than the Holy Ghost will come back when 
once He has taken his final flight from thy soul. With 
that Holy Spirit some of you have been in treaty, my dear 
friends. 

The Holy Spirit said: "Come, come to Christ." You 
said: "No, I won't." The Spirit said, more importu- 
nately: " Come to Christ. " You said: " Well, I will after 
awhile, when I get my business fixed up; when my friends 
consent to my coming; when they won't laugh at me — 



THE KANSOMLESS. 163 

then Fll come." But the Holy Spirit more emphatically 
said: "Come now." You said: "No, I can't. I can't 
come now." And that Holy Spirit stands in your heart 
to-night, with His hand on the door of your soul, ready to 
come oat. Will you let Him depart? If so, then, with a 
pen of light, dipped in ink of eternal blackness, the sen- 
tence may be now writing: " Ephraim is joined to his 
idols. Let him alone! Let him alone!" When that fatal 
record is made, you might as well brace yourselves up 
against the sorrows of the last day, against the anguish of 
an unforgiven death-bed, against the flame and the over" 
throw of an undone eternity; for though you might live 
thirty years after that in the world, your fate would be as 
certain as though you had already entered the gates of 
darkness. That is the dead line. Look out how you 

cross it! 

" ' There is a line by us unseen, 
That crosses every path; 
The hidden boundary between 
God's patience and His wrath.'" 

And some of you, to-night, have come up to that line. 
Ay, you have lifted your foot, and when you put it down, 
it will be on the other side! Look out how you cross it! 
Oh, grieve not the Spirit of God, lest He never come back! 

III. This fatal stroke spoken of in the text may be our 
exit from this world. I hear aged people sometimes say- 
ing: " I can't live much longer." But do you know the 
fact that there are a hundred young people and middle- 
aged people who go out of this life to one aged person, for 
the simple reason that there are not many aged people to 



1GI NEW TABEBNACLE SEBMOXS. 

leave life? The aged seem to stand around like stalks — 
sej)arate stalks of wheat at the corner of the field; but 
when death goes a-niowing, he likes to go down amid the 
thick of the harvest. What is more to the point: a man's 
going out of this world is never in the way he expects — it 
is never at the time he expects. The moment of leaving 
this world is always a surprise. If you expect to go in the 
winter, it may be in the summer; if in the summer, it may 
be in the winter; if in the night, it maybe in the day-time; 
if you think to go in the day-time, it may be in the night. 
Suddenly the event will rush ujoon you, and you will be 
gone. Where? If a Christian — into joy. If not a Chris- 
tian — into suffering. 

The GosjDel call stops outside of the door of the sepul- 
cher. The sleeper within can not hear it. If that call 
should be sounded out with clarion voice louder than ever 
rang through the air, that sleeper could not hear it. I 
suppose every hour of the day, and now, while I am sj>eak- 
ing, there are souls rushing into eternity unprejDared. 
They slide from the pillow, or they slip from the pave- 
ment, and in an eye-twinkling they are gone. Elegant 
and eloquent funeral oration will not do them any good. 
Epitaph, cut on polished Scotch granite, will not do them 
any good. Wailing of beloved kindred can not call them 
back. 

But, says some one: " Fll keep out of peril; I will not 
go on the sea, I will not go into battle — I'll keej) out of all 
danger." That is no defense. Thousands of people, last 
night, on their couches, with the front door locked, and no 
armed assassin anywhere around, surrounded by all de- 



THE RANSOMLESS. 105 

fended circumstances, slipped out of this life into the next. 
If time had been on one side of the shuttle and eternity on 
the other side of the shuttle, they could not have shot 
quicker across it. A man was saying: " My father was 
lost at sea, and my grandfather, and my great-grand- 
father. Wasn't it strange?" A man, talking to him, 
said: " You ought never to venture on the sea, lest you, 
yourself, be lost at sea." The man turned to the other, 
and said: "Where did your father die?" He replied: 
"In his bed." "Where did your grandfather die?" 
" In his bed." " Where did your great-grandfather die?" 
" In his bed." " Then," he said, " be careful, lest some 
night, while you are asleep on your couch, your time may 
come!" 

Death alone is sure. Suddenly, you and I will go out of 
life. I am not saying anything to your soul that I am not 
going to say to my own soul. We have got to go suddenly 
out of this life. If I am prepared for that change, I do 
not care where my body is taken from — at what point I 
am taken out of this life. If I am ready, all is well. If I 
am not ready, though I might be at home, and though my 
loved ones might be standing around me, and though there 
might be the best surgical and medical ability in the room, 
I tell you, if I were not prepared, I would be frightened 
more than tongue can tell. It may seem like cowardice, 
but I am not ashamed to say that I should have the most 
indescribable horror about going out of this world if I 
thought I was unprepared for the next — if I had no Christ 
in my soul; for it would be a plunge compared with which 
a leap from the top of Mont Blanc would be nothing. 



166 KEW TABERKACLE SERMON'S. 

But this brings me to the most tremendous thought of 
my text. The text supposes that a man goes into ruin, 
and that an effort is made afterward for his rescue, and 
then says the thing can not be done. Is that so? After 
death seizes upon that soul, is there no resurrection? If a 
man topples off the edge of life, is there nothing to break 
his fall? If an impenitent man goes overboard, are there 
no grappling-hooks to hoist him into safety? The text 
says distinctly: " Then a great ransom can not deliver 
thee/-' 

I know there are people who call themselves " Eestora- 
tiouists," and they say a sinful man may go down into the 
world of the lost; he stays there until he gets reformed, 
and then comes up into the world of light and blessedness. 
It seems to me to be a most unreasonable doctrine — as 
though the world of darkness were a place where a man 
could get reformed. Is there anything in the society of 
the lost world — the abandoned and the wretched of God's 
universe — to elevate a man's character and lift him at last 
to heaven? Can we go into companionship of the Keroes 
and the Herod s, and the Jim Fisks, and spend a certain 
number of years in that lost world, and then by that 
society be purified and lifted up? Is that the kind of 
society that reforms a man and prepares him for heaven? 
Would you go to Shreveport or Memphis, with the yellow 
fever there, to get your physical health restored? Can it 
be that a man may go down into the diseased world — a 
world overwhelmed by an epidemic of transgressions — and 
by that process, and in that atmosphere, be lifted up to 
health and glory? Your common sense says: " No! no!" 



THE RANSOMLESS. 167 

In such society as that, instead of being restored, you 
would go down worse and worse, plunging every hour into 
deeper depths of suffering and darkness. What your com- 
mon sense says the Bible reaffirms, when it says: " These 
shall go away into three months of punishment." I have 
quoted it wrong. " These shall go away into ten years of 
punishment." I have quoted it wrong. " These shall go 
into a thousand years of punishment." I have quoted it 
wrong. " These shall go into everlasting punishment." 
And now I have quoted it right; or, if you prefer, in the 
words of my text: " Then a great ransom can not deliver 
thee." 

Now just suppose that a spirit should come down from 
heaven and knock at the gates of woe and say: " Let that 
man out! Let me come in and suffer in his stead. I will 
be the sacrifice. Let him come out." The grim jailer 
would reply: " No, you don't know what a place this is, 
or you would not ask to come in; besides that, this man had 
full warning and full opportunity of escape. He did not 
take the warning, and now a great ransom shall not de- 
liver him. " 

Sometimes men are sentenced to imprisonment for life. 
There comes another judge on the bench, there comes 
another governor in the chair, and in three or four years 
you find the man who was sentenced for life in the street. 
You say: "I thought you were sentenced for life." 
" Oh!" he says, "politics are changed, and I am now a 
free man." But it will not be so for a soul at the last. 
There will be no new judge or new governor. If at the 
end of a century a soul might come out, it would not be so 



1GS NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

bad. If at the end of a thousand years it might come out, 
it would not be so bad. If there were any time in all the 
future, in quadrillions and quadrillions of years, that the 
soul might come out, it would not be so bad; but if the 
Bible be true, it is a state of unending duration. 

Far on in the ages one lost soul shall cry out to another 
lost soul: " How long have you been here?" and the soul 
will reply: " The years of my ruin are countless. I esti- 
mated the time for thousands of years; but what is the use 
of estimating when all these rolling cycles bring us no 
nearer the terminus." Ages! Ages! Ages! Eterni- 
ty! Eternity! Eternity! The wrath to come! The 
wrath to come! The wrath to come! No medicine to 
cure that marasmus of the soul. No hammer to strike 
off the handcuff of that incarceration. No burglar's key 
to pick the locks which the Lord hath fastened. Sir 
Francis Newport, in his last moment, caught just one 
glimpse of that world. He had lived a sinful life. Before 
he went into the eternal world he looked into it. The last 
words he ever uttered were, as he gathered himself up on 
his elbows in the bed: "Oh, the insufferable pangs of 
hell!" The lost soul will cry out: " I can not stand this! 
I can not stand this! Is there no way out?" and the echo 
will answer: " No way out." And the soul will cry: " Is 
this forever?" and the echo will answer: " Forever!" 

Is it all true? " These shall go- away into everlasting 
punishment, while the righteous go into life eternal." 
Are there two destinies? and must all this audience share 
one or the other? Shall I give an account for what I have 
told you to-night? Have I held back any truth, though it 



THE RANSOMLESS. 169 

were plain, though it were unpalatable? Must I meet you 
there, oh, you dying but immortal auditory?. I wish that 
my text, with all its uplifted hands of warning, could come 
upon your souls: " Beware lest He take thee away with 
His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee." 

Glory be to God, there is a ransom that can now deliver 
you, braver than Grace Darling putting out in a life-boat 
from Eddystone Light-house for the rescue of the crew of 
the Forfarshire steamer — Christ the Lord launched from 
heaven, amid the shouting of the angels. Thirty-three 
years afterward, Christ the Lord launched from earth to 
heaven, amid human and infernal execration; yet staying 
here long enough to save all who will believe in Him. Do 
you hear that? To save all who will believe in Him. Oh, 
that pierced side! Oh, that bleeding brow! Oh, that 
crushed foot! Oh, that broken heart! That is your hope, 
sinner. That is your ransom from sin, and death, and 
hell. 

Why have I told you all these things to-night, plainly 
and frankly? It is because I know there is redemption for 
you, and I would have you now come and get it. Oh, 
men and women long prayed for, and striven with, and 
coaxed of the mercy of God — have you concentrated all 
your physical, mental, and spiritual energies in one awful 
determination to be lost? Is there nothing in the value of 
your soul, in the graciousness of Christ, in the thunders of 
the last day, in the blazing glories of heaven, and the surg- 
ing wrath of an undone eternity to start you out of your 
indifference, and make you pray? Oh, must God come 
upon you in some other way? Must He take another 



170 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

darling child from your household? Must He take 
another installment from your worldly estate? Must Ho 
come upon you with sorrow after sorrow, and smite jox\ 
down with sickness before you will be moved, and before 
you will feel? 

Oh, weep now, while Jesus will count the tears! Siglv 
now in repentance, while Jesus will hear the grief. Now 
clutch the cross of the Son of God before it be swept away. 
Beware, lest the Holy Spirit leave thy heart. Beware, 
lest this night thy soul be required of thee. " Be- 
ware, lest he take thee away with His stroke : then a great 
ransom can not deliver thee." Oh, Lord God of Israel, 
see these impenitent souls on the verge of death ready to 
topple over! See them! Is there no help? Is this plea 
all in vain? I can not believe it, blessed God. Oh, thou 
mighty One, whose garments are red with the wine-press 
of Thine own sufferings, in the greatness of Thy strength 
ride through this audience, and may all this people fall 
into line, the willing captives of Thy grace. Men and 
women immortal ! I lay hold of you to-night with both 
hands of entreaty and of prayer, and I beg of you, prepare 
for death, judgment, and eternity. 



THE THREE GROUPS. 



"And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties." — 
Mark vi : 40. 

The sun was far down in the west, night was coming 
on, and there were five thousand people tired, hungry, 
shelterless. You know how Washington felt at Valley 
Forge, when his army was starving and freezing. You 
may imagine how any great-hearted general would feel 
while his troops were suffering. Imagine, then, how 
Christ, with His great heart, must have felt as He saw 
these five thousand hunger-bitten people. Yes, I suppose 
there were ten thousand there, for the Bible says there 
were five thousand men, besides women and children. 
The case is put in that way, not because the women and 
children were of less importance than the men, but be- 
cause they would eat less; and the whole force of the 
miracle turns on the amount of food required. 

How shall this great multitude be supplied? I see a self- 
ish man in that crowd pulling a luncheon out of his own 
pocket, and saying: "Let the people starve. They had 
no business to come out here in the desert without any 
provisions. They are improvident, and the improvident 
ought to suffer." There is another man, not quite 
so heartless, who says: "Go up into the village and 

(171) 



172 NEW TABEENACLE SEEMONS. 

buy bread.' ' What a foolish proposition! There is not 
enough food in all the village for this crowd; besides that, 
who has the money to pay for it? Xerxes' army, one 
million strong, was fed by a private individual of great 
wealth for only one day, but it broke him. Who, then, 
shall feed this multitude? 

I see a man rising in that great crowd and asking: " Is 
there any one here who has bread or meat?" A kind of 
moan goes through the whole throng. " No bread — no 
meat." But just at that time a lad steps up. You know 
when a great crowd goes off upon an excursion, there are 
always men and boys to go along for the purpose of mer- 
chandise and to strike a bargain: and so, I suppose, this 
boy had gone along for the purpose of merchandise; but 
he was nearly all sold out, having only five loaves and two 
fishes left. He is a generous boy, and he turns them over 
to Christ. 

But these loaves would not feed twenty people, how 
much less ten thousand ! Though the action was so gener- 
ous on the part of the boy, so far as satisfying the multi- 
tude, it was a dead failure. Then Jesus comes to the 
rescue. He is apt to come when there is a dead lift. He 
commands the people that they sit down " in ranks, by 
hundreds and by fifties," as much as to say: " Order! 
order! so that none be missed." It was fortunate that 
that arrangement was made; otherwise, at the very first 
appearance of bread, the strong ones would have clutched 
it, while the feeble and the modest would have gone un- 
supplied. 

I suppose it was no easy work to get that crowd seated, 



THE THREE GROUPS. 173 

for they all wanted to be in the front row, lest the bread 
give out before their turn come. No sooner are they 
seated than there comes a great hush over all the people. 
Jesus stands there, His light complexion and auburn locks 
illumined by the setting sun. Every eye is on Him. 
They wonder what He will do next. He takes one of the 
loaves that the boy furnished and breaks off it a piece, 
which immediately grows to as large a size as the original 
loaf, the original loaf staying as large as it was before the 
piece was broken off. And they leaned forward with in- 
tense scrutiny, saying: " Look! look!" When some one, 
anxious to see more minutely what is going on, rises in 
front, they cry: " Sit down in front! Let us look for 
ourselves. " 

And then, when the bread is passed around, they taste 
of it skeptically and inquiringly, as much as to say: " Is it 
bread? Eeally, is it bread?" Yes, the best bread that 
was ever made, for Christ made it. Bread for the first 
fifty and second fifty. Bread for the first hundred and 
the second hundred. Bread for the first thousand and the 
second thousand. Pass it all around the circle: there, 
where that aged man sits leaning on his staff, and where 
that woman sits with the child in her arms. Pass it all 
around. Are you all fed? "Ay! ay!" respond the ten 
thousand voices; " all fed." One basket would have held 
the loaves before the miracle; it takes twelve baskets now. 
Sound it through all the ages of earth and heaven, that 
Christ the Lord comes to our suffering race with the bread 
of this life in one hand, and the bread of eternal life in the 
other hand. • 



17i NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

You have all immediately run out the analogy between 
that scene and this. There were thousands there; there 
are thousands here. They were in the desert; many of 
you are in the desert of trouble and sin. No human power 
eo aid feed them; no human power can feed you. Christ 
appeared to them; Christ appears to you. Bread enough 
for all in the desert; bread enough for all who are here. 
And, as on that occasion, so in this: we have the people 
" sit down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties;" for the 
fact that many of you stand is no fault of ours, for we 
have tried to give you seats. As Christ divided that com- 
pany into groups, so I divide this audience into three 
groups: the pardoned, the seeking, the careless. 

I. And, first, I speak to the pardoned. 

It is with some of you half past five in the morning, and 
some faint streaks of light. "With others it is seven 
o'clock, and thus full dawn. With others it is twelve 
o'clock at noon, and you sit in full blaze of Gospel par- 
don. I bring you congratulation. Joseph delivered from 
Potiphar's dungeon; Daniel lifted from the lion's den; 
Saul arrested and unhorsed on the road to Damascus. Oh, 
you delivered captives, how yo ur eyes should gleam, and 
your souls should bound, and your lips should sing in this 
pardon! From what land did you come? A land of dark- 
ness. What is to be your destiny? A land of light. Who 
got you out? Christ, the Lord. Can you sit so placidly 
and unmoved while all heaven comes to your soul with 
congratulation, and harps are strung, and crowns are 
lifted, and a great joy swings round the heavens at the 
news of your disinthrailment? If you coidd realize out of 



THE THREE GROUPS. 175 

what a pit you have been dug, to what height you are to 
be raised, and to what glory you are destined, you would 
spring to your feet with " Hosanna!" 

In 1808 there was a meeting of the emperors of France 
and Eussia at Erfurt. There were distinguished men 
there also from other lands. It was so arranged that when 
any of the emperors arrived at the door of the reception- 
room, the drum should beat three times; but when a 
lesser dignitary should come, then the drum would sound 
but twice. After awhile the peoj)le in the audience-cham- 
ber heard two taps of the drum. They said: " A prince 
is coming. " But after awhile there were three taps, and 
they cried: " The emperor!" Oh, there is a more glori- 
ous arrival at your soul to-night! The drum beats twice 
at the coming in of the lesser joys and congratulations of 
your soul; but it beats once, twice, thrice at the coming in 
of a glorious King — Jesus the Saviour, Jesus the God ! I 
congratulate you. All are yours — things present and 
things to come. 

II. I come now to speak of the second division — those 
who are seeking; some of you with more earnestness, some 
of you with less earnestness. But I believe that to-night, 
if I should ask all those who wish to find the way to heaven 
to rise, and the world did not scoff at you, and your own 
proud heart did not keep you down, there would be a 
thousand souls who would cry out as they rose up: " Show 
me the way to heaven!" That young man who smiled to 
the one next to him, as though he cared for none of these 
things, would be on his knees crying for mercy. Why this 
anxious look? Why this deep disquietude in the soul? 



176 NEW TABEKNACLE SEEMONS. 

Why, at the beginning of this service, did you do what 
you have not done for years — bow your head in prayer? 
You are seeking. 

" I am a gambler," says one man. There is mercy for 
you. " I am a libertine/'' says another. There is mercy 
for you. "I have plunged into every abomination." 
Mercy for you. The door of grace does not stand ajar to- 
night, nor half swung around on the hinges. It is wide, 
wide open; and there is nothing in the Bible, or in Christ, 
or God, or earth, or heaven, or hell, to keep you out of the 
door of safety, if you want to go in. Christ has borne 
your burdens, fought your battles, suffered for your sins. 
The debt is paid, and the receipt is handed to you, written 
in the blood of the Son of God — will you have it? Oh, 
decide the matter now! Decide it here ! Fling your ex- 
hausted soid down at the feet of an all-compassionate, all- 
sympathizing, all-pitying, all-pardoning Jesus. The 
laceration on His brow, the gash in His side, the torn 
muscles and nerves of His feet beg you to come. 

But remember that one inch outside the door of pardon, 
and you are in as much peril as though you were a thou- 
sand miles away. Many a shipwrecked sailor has got 
almost to the beach, but did not get on it. There are 
thousands in the world of the lost who came very near be- 
ing saved — perhaps as near as you are to-night — but were 
not saved. 

On the eastern coast of England, a few weeks ago, in a 
fishing-village, there was a good deal of excitement. 
While people were in church, the sailors and fishermen 
hearing the Gospel on the babbath, there was a cry: " To 



THE THREE GROUPS. 177 

the beach!" and the minister closed the Bible, and with 
his congregation went out to help, and they saw in the 
offing a ship in trouble; but there was some disorder amid 
the fishing-smacks, and amid all the boats, and it was 
almost impossible to get anything launched. But after 
awhile they did, and they pulled away for the wreck, and 
came almost up, when suddenly the distressed bark in the 
offing capsized, and they all went down. Oh, if the life- 
boats had only been ten minutes quicker ! And how many 
a life-boat has been launched from the Gospel shore! It 
has come almost up to the drowning, and yet, after all, 
they were not rescued. Somehow they did not get into it! 

I suppose there are people who have asked for our 
prayers, and I suppose there were some in the side room, 
last Sabbath night, talking about their souls, who will 
miss heaven. They do not take the last step, and all the 
other steps go for nothing until you have taken the last 
step, for I have here, in the presence of God and this peo- 
ple, to announce the solemn truth, that to be almost saved 
is to be lost forever. That is all I have to say to the 
second division. 

III. I come now to speak to the careless. You look in- 
different, and I suppose you are indifferent. You say: 
" I came in here because a friend invited me to see what is 
going on, but with no serious intentions about my soul. I 
have so much work, and so much pleasure on hand, don't 
bother me about religion." And yet you are gentlemanly, 
and you are lady-like, in your behavior, and, therefore, I 
know that you will listen respectfully if I talk courteously. 
Christian people are sometimes afraid to talk to men and 



178 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

women of the world lest they be insulted. If they talk 
courteously to people of the world, they will listen courte- 
ously. So now I try to come in that way, and in that 
spirit, and talk to those of you who tell me that you are 
careless about your soul. 

Then you have a soul, have you? Yes, precious, with 
infinite capacity for joy or suffering, winged for flight 
somewhere. Beckoned upward, beckoned downward. 
Fought after by angels and by fiends. Immortal! 

" The sun is but a spark of fire, 
A transient meteor in the sky: 
The soul, immortal as its Sire, 
Can never die." 

Your body will soon be taken down, the castle will be de- 
stroyed, the tower will be in the dust, the windows will be 
broken out, and the place where your body sleeps will be 
forgotten; but your soul, after that, will be living, acting, 
feeling, thinking — where? where? Oh, there must be 
something of incomputable worth in that for which heaven 
gave up its best inhabitant, and Christ went into martyr- 
dom, and at the coming of which angels chant an eternal 
litany and devils rush to the gate. When everything above 
you, and beneath you, and around you, is intent upon that 
soul, you can not afford to be careless, especially when I 
think, this moment while I speak, there are thousands of 
souls in heaven rejoicing that they attended to this matter 
in time, while at this very instant there are souls in the 
lost world mourning that they did not attend to it in time. 
Hark to the howling of the damned ! 



THE THREE GROUPS. 179 

Oh, if this room could be vacated of this audience, and 
you were all gone, and the wan spirits of the lost could 
come up and occupy this place, and I could stand before 
them with offers of pardon through Jesus Christ, and then 
ask them if they would accept it, there would come up an 
instantaneous, multitudinous, overwhelming cry: " Yes! 
yes! yes! yes!" A T o such fortune for them. They had 
their day of grace, and sacrificed it. You have yours; will 
you sacrifice it? I wish that I could have you see these 
things as you will one day see them. 

Suppose, on your way home, a runaway horse should 
dash across the street, or between the dock and the boat 
you should accidentally slip, where would you be at twelve 
o'clock to-night or seven o'clock to-morrow morning? Or 
for all eternity where would you be ? I do not answer the 
question. I just leave it to you to answer. 

But suppose you escape fatal accident. Suppose you go 
out by the ordinary process of sickness. I will just sup- 
pose now that your last hour has come. The doctor says, 
as he goes out of the room: " Can't get well." There is 
something in the faces of those who stand around you that 
prophesies that you can not get well. You say within 
yourself: "I can't get well." Where are your comrades 
now? Oh, they are off to the gay party that very night! 
They dance as well as they -ever did. They drink as much 
wine. They laugh as loud as though you were not dying. 
They destroyed your soul, but do not come to help you die. 

Well, there are father and mother in the room. They 
are very quiet, but occasionally they go out into the next 
room and weep bitterly. The bed is very much disheveled. 



180 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

They have not been able to make it up for two or three 
days. There are four or five pillows lying around, be- 
cause they have been trying to make you as easy as they 
could. On the one side of your bed are all the past years 
of your life — the Bibles, the sermons, the communion- 
tables, the offers of mercy. You say: " Take them 
away." Your mother thinks you are delirious. She says: 
" There is nothing there, my dear, nothing there." There 
is something there! It is your wasted opportunities. It 
is your procrastinations. It is those years you gave to the 
world that you ought to have given to Christ. They are 
there; and some of them put their fingers on your aching 
temples, and some of them feel for the strings of your 
heart, and some ]3ut more thorns in your tumbled pillow, 
and you say: "Turn me over." And they turn you 
over, but, alas! there is a more appalling vision. You say: 
" Take that away!" They say: " There is nothing there, 
nothing there. " There is — an open grave there! the 
judgment is there! a lost eternity is there ! Take it away! 
They can not take it away. 

You say: " How dark it is getting in the room!" 
Why, the burners are all lighted. Your family come up 
one by one, and tenderly kiss you good-bye. Your feet 
are cold, and the hands are cold, and the lips are cold, 
and they take a small mirror and they put it over your 
mouth to see if there is any breathing, and that mirror is 
taken away without a single blur upon it; and they whis- 
per through the room: " She is gone." And then the 
door of the body opens and the soul flashes out. Make 
room for the destroyed spirit. 



THE THREE GROUPS. 181 

Push back that door! Lost! Let it come into its 
eternal residence. Woe! woe! No cup of merriment 
now, but cup of the wrath of Almighty God. The last 
chance for heaven gone. The door of mercy shut. The 
doom sealed. The blackness of darkness forever! 

Voltaire is there. Herod is there. Robespierre is there. 
The debauchees are there. The murderers are there. All 
the rejectors of Jesus Christ are there. And you will be 
there unless you repent. You can not say, my dear 
brother, that you were not warned. This sermon would 
be a witness against you. You can not say that God's 
Holy Spirit never strove with your heart. He is striving 
now. You can not say that you had no chance for 
heaven, for the Omnipotent Son of God offers you His 
rescue. You can not say: " I had no warning about that 
world; I didn't know there was any such place," for the 
Bible distinctly rings in your ears to-day, saying: "At 
the end of the world the angels shall separate the wicked 
from among the just, and shall cast them into a furnace of 
fire." And again that book says: " The wicked shall be 
turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." 
And again it says: " The smoke of their torment ascend - 
eth for ever and ever. " 

You can not say that you did not hear about heaven, the 
other alternative, for you hear of it now: " The Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to 
living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes." No sorrow, no suffering, no 
death. Oh, will you be careless any longer, when I tell 
you that Christ, the Conqueror of earth and hell, offers 



182 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

you now escape from all peril, and offers to introduce you 
this very hour into the peace and pardon of the Gospel, 
prejDaring you for that good land? The sides of Calvary 
run blood for you. Jesus, who had not where to lay His 
head, offers you His heart as a pillow of rest. Christ 
offers with His own body to bridge over the chasm of 
death, saying: " Walk over Ale; I am the way/" 

suffering Jesus! the thief scoffed at Thee, and the 
malefactor spat on Thee, and the soldiers stabbed Thee; 
but these who sit before Thee to-day have no heart to do 
that. Jesus ! tell them of Thy love, tell them of Thy 
sympathy, tell them of the rewards Thou wilt give them 
in the better land. Groan again, blessed Jesus! groan 
again, and perhaps when the rocks fall, their hard hearts 
may break. 

" Nothing brought Him from above, 
Nothing but redeeming love." 

The promise is all free, the path all clear. Come, Mary, 
and sit to-night at the feet of Jesus. Come, Bartimeus, 
and have your eyes opened. Come, prodigal! and sit at 
thy father's table. Come, you suffering, sinning, dying 
the soul ! and find rest on the heart of Jesus. The Spirit and 
Bride say " Come," and Churches militant and triunrph- 
ant say " Come," and all the voices of the past, min- 
gling with all the voices of the future, in one great thunder 
of emphasis, bid you " Come new!" Are not those of 
you who are in the third class ready to pass over into the 
second division, and become seekers after Christ? Ay, 
are you not ready to pass over into the first division, and 



THE THEEE GROUPS. 183 

become tlie pardoned sons and daughters of the Lord 
Almighty? I can do no more than offer you, through 
Jesus Christ, peace on earth and everlasting residence in 
His presence. 

" When God makes up His last account 
Of natives in His holy mount, 
'Twill be an honor to appear 
As one new-born and nourished there." 

Good-night! The Lord bless you! Go to your hemes 
seeking after Christ. Sleep not until you have made your 
peace with God. Good-night — a deep, hearty, loving, 
Christian good-night! 



THE INSIGNIFICANT. 



" And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the 
reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging 
unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech." — Ruth ii: 3. 

The time that Euth and Naomi arrive at Bethlehem is 
harvest-time. It was the custom when a sheaf fell from a 
load in the harvest-field for the reapers to refuse to gather 
it up : that was to be left for the poor who might happen 
to come along that way. If there were handfuls of grain 
scattered across the field after the main harvest had been 
reaped, instead of raking it, as farmers do now, it was, by 
the custom of the land, left in its place, so that the poor, 
coming along that way, might glean it and get their bread. 
But, you say, " What is the use of all these harvest-fields 
to Ruth and Naomi? Naomi is too old and feeble to go 
out and toil in the sun; and can you expect that Ruth, the 
young and the beautiful, should tan her cheeks and blister 
her hands in the harvest-field?" 

Boaz owns a large farm, and he goes out to see the 
reapers gather in the grain. Coming there, right behind 
the swarthy, sun-browned reapers, he beholds a beautiful 
woman gleaning — a woman more fit to bend to a harp or 
sit upon a throne than to stoop among the sheaves. Ah, 
that was an eventful day! 

(184) 



THE INSIGNIFICANT. 185 

It was love at first sight. Boaz forms an attachment 
for the womanly gleaner — an attachment full of undying 
interest to the Church of God in all ages; while Ruth, with 
an ephah, or nearly a bushel of barley, goes home to 
Naomi to tell her the successes and adventures of the day. 
That Ruth, who left her native land of Moab in darkness, 
and traveled through an undying affection for her mother- 
in-law, is in the harvest-field of Boaz, is affianced to one of 
the best families in Judah, and becomes in after-time the 
ancestress of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory! Out of so 
dark a night did there ever dawn so bright a morning? 

I. I learn, in the first place, from this subject how 
trouble develops character. It was bereavement, poverty, 
and exile that developed, illustrated, and announced to all 
ages the sublimity of Ruth's character. That is a very 
unfortunate man who has no trouble. It was sorrow that 
made John Bunyan the better dreamer, and Doctor Young 
the better poet, and O'Connell the better orator, and 
Bishop Hall the better preacher, and Havelock the better 
soldier, and Kitto the better encyclopaedist, and Ruth the 
better daughter-in-law. 

I once asked an aged man in regard to his pastor, who 
was a very brilliant man, " Why is it that your pastor, so 
very brilliant, seems to have so little heart and tenderness 
in his sermons?" " Well," he replied, " the reason is, 
our pastor has never had any trouble. When misfortune 
comes upon him, his style will be different."" After awhile 
the Lord took a child out of that pastor's house; and 
though the preacher was just as brilliant as he was before, 
oh, the warmth, the tenderness of his discourses! The 



186 NEW TABERXACLE SEBMOKS. 

fact is, that trouble is a great educator. You see some- 
times a musician sit down at an instrument, and his exe- 
cution is cold and formal and unfeeling. The reason is 
that all his life he has been prospered. But let misfortune 
or bereavement come to that man,, and lie sits down at the 
instrument, and you discover the pathos in the first sweep 
of the keys. 

Misfortune and trials are en-eat educators. A voting 
doctor comes into a sick-room where there is a dying child. 
Perhaps he is very rough in his prescription, and very 
rough in his manner, and rough in the feeling of the 
pulse, and rough in his answer to the mother's anxious 
question; but years roll on. and there has been one dead in 
his own house: and now he comes into the sick-room, and 
with tearful eye he looks at the dying child, and he 
says, " Oh, how this reminds me of my Charlie I" 
Trouble, the great educator. Sorrow — I see its touch in 
the grandest painting: I hear its tremor in the sweetest 
song: I feel its power in the mightiest argument. 

Grecian mythology said that the fountain of Hippocrene 
was struck out by the foot of the winged horse Pegasus. I 
have often noticed in life that the brightest and most beau- 
tiful fountains of Christian comfort and spiritual life have 
been struck out by the iron-shod hoof of disaster and 
calamity. I see Daniel's courage best by the flash of 
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. I see Paul's prowess best 
when I find him on the foundering ship under the glare of 
the lightning in the breakers of Melita. God crowns His 
children amid the howling of wild beasts and the chopping 
of blood-splashed guillotine and the crackling fires of mar- 



THE INSIGNIFICAKT. 187 

tyrdom. It took the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius to 
develop Polycarp and Justin Martyr. It took the pope's 
bull and the cardinal's curse and the world's anathema to 
develop Martin Luther. It took all the hostilities against 
the Scotch Covenanters and the fury of Lord Claverhouse 
to develop James Benwick, and Andrew Melville, and 
Hugh McKail, the glorious martyrs of Scotch history. It 
took the stormy sea, and the December blast, and the 
desolate New England coast, and the war-whoop of sav- 
ages, to show forth the prowess of the Pilgrim Fathers — 

" When amid the storms they sung, 
And the stars heard, and the sea; 
And the sounding aisles of the dim wood 
Rang to the anthems of the free." 

It took all our past national distresses, and it takes all 
our present national sorrows, to lift up our nation on that 
high career where it will march along after the foreign 
aristocracies that have mocked and the tyrannies that have 
jeered, shall be swept down under the omnipotent wrath 
of God, who hates despotism, and who, by the strength of 
His own red right arm, will make all men free. And so 
it is individually, and in the family, and in the Church, 
and in the world, that through darkness and storm and 
trouble men, women, churches, nations, are developed. 

II. Again, I see in my text the beauty of unfaltering 
friendship. I suppose there were plenty of friends for 
Naomi while she was in prosperity; but of all her ac- 
quaintances, how many were willing to trudge off with her 
toward Judah, when she had to make that lonely journey? 



188 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

One — the heroine of my text. One — absolutely one. I 
suppose when Naomi's husband was living, and they had 
plenty of money, and all things went well, they had a 
great many callers; but I suppose that after her husband 
died, and her property went, and she got old and poor, she 
was not troubled very much with callers. All the birds 
that sung in the bower while the sun shone have gone to 
their nests, now the night has fallen. 

Oh, these beautiful sun-flowers that spread out their 
color in the morning hour! but they are always asleep 
when the sun is going down! Job had plenty of friends 
when he was the richest man in Uz; but when his prop- 
erty went and the trials came, then there were none so 
much that pestered as Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad 
the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 

Life often seems to be a mere game, where the success- 
ful player pulls down all the other men into his own lap. 
Let suspicions arise about a man's character, and he be- 
comes like a bank in a panic, and all the imputations rush 
on him and break down in a day that character which in 
due time would have had strength to defend itself. There 
are reputations that have been half a century in building, 
which go down under some moral exposure, as a vast tem- 
ple is consumed by the touch of a sulphurous match. A 
hog can uproot a century plant. 

In this world, so full of heartlessness and hypocrisy, 
how thrilling it is to find some friend as faithful in days of 
adversity as in days of prosperity! David had such a 
friend in Hushai; the Jews had such a friend in Mordecai, 
who never forgot their cause; Paul had such a friend in 



THE INSIGNIFICANT. 189 

Onesiphorus, who visited him in jail; Christ had such in 
the Marys, who adhered to Him on the cross; Naomi had 
such a one in Ruth, who cried out: " Entreat me not to 
leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for 
whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I 
will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God; where thou cliest will I die, and there will I be 
buried : the Lord do so to me, and more also; if aught but 
death part thee and me. " 

III. Again, I learn from this subject that paths which 
open in hardship and darkness often come out in places of 
joy. When Euth started from Moab toward Jerusalem, 
to go along with her mother-in-law, I suppose the people 
said: "Oh, what a foolish creature to go away from her 
father's house, to go off with a poor old woman toward the 
land of Judah! They won't live to get across the desert. 
They will be drowned in the sea, or the jackals of the 
wilderness will destroy them." It was a very dark morn- 
ing when Euth started off with Naomi; but behold her in 
my text in the harvest-field of Boaz, to be affianced to one 
of the lords of the land, and become one of the grand- 
mothers of Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. And so it 
often is that a path which often starts very darkly ends 
very brightly. 

"When you started out for heaven, oh, how dark was the 
hour of conviction — how Sinai thundered, and devils tor- 
mented, and the darkness thickened! All the sins of your 
life pounced upon you, and it was the darkest horn* you 
ever saw when you first found out your sins. After awhile 
you went into the harvest-field of God's mercy; you began 



190 FEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

to glean in the fields of divine promise, and you had more 
sheaves than you could carry, as the voice of God ad- 
dressed you, saying: " Blessed is the man whose transgres- 
sions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered." A very 
dark starting in conviction, a very bright ending in the 
pardon and the hope and the triumph of the Gospel! 

So, very often in our worldly business or in our spiritual 
career, we start off on a very dark path. We must go. 
The flesh may shrink back, but there is a voice within, or 
a voice from above, saying, " You must go;" and we have 
to drink the gall, and we have to carry the cross, and we 
have to traverse the desert and we are pounded and flailed 
of misrepresentation and abuse, and we have to urge our 
way through ten thousand obstacles that have been slain 
by our own right arm. We have to ford the river, we 
have to climb the mountain, we have to storm the castle; 
but, blessed be God, the day of rest and reward will come. 
On the tip-top of the captured battlements we will shout 
the victory; if not in this world, then in that world where 
there is no gall to drink, no burdens to carry, no battles 
to fight. How do I know it? Know it! I know it be- 
cause God says so: " They shall hunger no more, neither 
thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor 
any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall 
wipe all tears from their eyes. " 

It was very hard for Xoah to endure the scoffing of the 
people in his day, while he was trying to build the ark, 
and was every morning quizzed about his old boat that 
would never be of any practical use; but when the deluge 



THE INSIGNIFICANT. 191 

came, and the tops of the mountains disappeared like the 
backs of sea-monsters, and the elements, lashed up in fury, 
clapped their hands over a drowned world, then Noah in 
the ark rejoiced in his own safety and in the safety of 
his family, and looked out on the wreck of a ruined 
earth. 

Christ, hounded of persecutors, denied a pillow, worse 
maltreated than the thieves on either side of the cross, 
human hate smacking its lips in satisfaction after it had 
been draining His last drop of blood, the sheeted dead 
bursting from the sepulchers at His crucifixion. Tell me, 
Gethsemane and Golgotha! were there ever darker 
times than those? Like the booming of the midnight sea 
against the rock, the surges of Christ's anguish beat 
against the gates of eternity, to be echoed back by all the 
thrones of heaven and all the dungeons of hell. But the 
day of reward comes for Christ; all the pomp and domin- 
ion of this world are to be hung on His throne, uncrowned 
heads are to bow before Him on whose head are many 
crowns, and all the celestial worship is to come up at His 
feet, like the humming of the forest, like the rushing of 
the waters, like the thundering of the seas, while all 
heaven, rising on their thrones, beat time with their scep- 
ters : ' ' Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reign- 
eth! Hallelujah, the kingdoms of this world have become 
the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ!" 

"That song of love, now low and far, 
Ere long shall swell from star to star; 
That light, the breaking day which tips 
The golden -spired Apocalypse." 



192 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

IV. Again, I learn from my subject that events which 
seem to be most insignificant may be momentous. Can 
you imagine anything more unimportant than the coming 
of a poor woman from Moab to Judah? Can you imagine 
anything more trivial than the fact that this Ruth just 
happened to alight — as they say — just happened to alight 
on that field of Boaz? Yet all ages, all generations, have 
an interest in the fact that she was to become an ancestor 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all nations and kingdoms 
must look at that one little incident with a thrill of un- 
speakable and eternal satisfaction. So it is in your history 
and in mine : events that you thought of no importance at 
all have been of very great moment. That casual con- 
versation, that accidental meeting — you did not think of it 
again for a long while; but how it changed all the phase 
of your life! 

It seemed to be of no importance that Jubal invented 
rude instruments of music, calling them harp and organ; 
but they were the introduction of all the world's min- 
strelsy; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed in- 
strument, even after the fingers have been taken away 
from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet is 
only the long-continued strains of JubaFs harp and 
JubaFs organ. It seemed to be a matter of very little im- 
portance that Tubal Cain learned the uses of copper and 
iron; but that rude foundry of ancient days has its echo in 
the rattle of Birmingham machinery, and the roar and 
bang of factories on the Merrimac. 

It seemed to be a matter of no importance that Luther 
found a Bible in a monastery; but as he opened that Bible, 



THE IX SIGNIFICANT. 193 

and the brass-bound lids fell back, they jarred everything, 
from the Vatican to the furthest convent in Germany, and 
the rustling of the wormed leaves was the sound of the 
wings of the angel of the Reformation. It seemed to be a 
matter of no importance that a woman, whose name has 
been forgotten, dropped a tract in the way of a very bad 
man by the name of Richard Baxter. He picked up the 
tract and read it, and it was the means of Ins salva- 
tion. 

In after-days that man wrote a book called " The Call to 
the Unconverted," that was the means of bringing a mul- 
titude to God, among others Philip Doddridge. Philip 
Doddridge wrote a book called " The Rise and Progress of 
Religion," which has brought thousands and tens of thou- 
sands into the kingdom of God, and among others the 
great Wilberforce. Wilberforce wrote a book called " A 
Practical View of Christianity," which was the means of 
bringing a great multitude to Christ, among others Legh 
Richmond. Legh Richmond wrote a tract called " The 
Dairyman's Daughter," which has been the means of the 
salvation of unconverted multitudes. And that tide of in- 
fluence started from the fact that one Christian woman 
dropped a Christian tract in the way of Richard Baxter — 
the tide of influence rolling on through Richard Baxter, 
through Philip Doddridge, through the great Wilberforce, 
through Legh Richmond, on, on, on, forever, forever. So 
the insignificant events of this world seem, after all, to be 
most momentous. The fact that you came up that street 
or this street seemed to be of no importance to you, and 
tke fact that you went inside of some church may seem to 



194 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

be a matter of very great insignificance to you, but you 
will find it the turning-point in your history. 

V. Again, I see in my subject an illustration of the 
beauty of female industry. 

Behold Euth toiling in the harvest-field under the hot 
sun, or at noon taking jA&m bread with the reapers, or 
eating the parched corn which Boaz handed to her. The 
customs of society, of course, have changed, and without 
the hardships and exposure to which Euth was subjected, 
every intelligent woman will find something to do. 

I know there is a sickly sentimentality on this subject. 
In some families there are persons of no practical service 
to the household or community; and though there are so 
many woes all around about them in the world, they sj)end 
their time languishing over a new pattern, or bursting into 
tears at midnight over the story of some lover who shot 
himself! They would not deign to look at Euth carrying 
back the barley on her way home to her mother-in-law, 
Naomi. All this fastidiousness may seem to do very well 
while they are under the shelter of their father's house; 
but when the sharp winter of misfortune comes, what of 
these butterflies? Persons under indulgent parentage may 
get upon themselves habits of indolence; but when they 
come out into practical life their soul will recoil with dis- 
gust and chagrin. They will feel in their hearts what the 
poet so severely satirized when he said : 

" Folks are so awkward, things so impolite, 
They're elegantly pained from morning until night." 

Through that gate of indolence how many men and 
women have marched, useless on earth, to a destroyed 



THE INSIGNIFICANT. 195 

eternity! Spinola said to Sir Horace Vere: " Of what did 
your brother die?" " Of having nothing to do/' was the 
answer. " Ah!" said Spinola, " that's enough to kill any 
general of us." Oh! can it be possible in this world, 
where there is so much suffering to be alleviated, so much 
darkness to be enlightened, and so many burdens to be car- 
ried, that there is any person who cannot find anything to do? 

Madame de Stael did a world of work in her time; and 
one day, while she was seated amid instruments of music, 
all of which she had mastered, and amid manuscript books 
which she had written, some one said to her: " How do 
you find time to attend to all these things?" " Oh," she 
replied, " these are not the things I am proud of. My 
chief boast is in the fact that I have seventeen trades, by 
any one of which I could make a livelihood if necessary." 
And if in secular spheres there is so much to be done, in 
spiritual work how vast the field ! How many dying all 
around about us without one word of comfort! We want 
more Abigails, more Hannahs, more Rebeccas, more 
Marys, more Deborahs consecrated — body, mind, soul — to 
the Lord who bought them. 

VI. Once more I learn from my subject the value of 
gleaning. 

Ruth going into that harvest-field might have said: 
" There is a straw, and there is a straw, but what is a 
straw? I can't get any barley for myself or my mother- 
in-law out of these separate straws." Not so said beauti- 
ful Ruth. She gathered two straws, and she put them 
together, and more straws, until she got enough to make a 
sheaf. Putting that down, she went and gathered more 



196 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

straws, until she had another sheaf, and another, and 
another, and another, and then she brought them all to- 
gether, and she threshed them out, and she had an ephah of 
barley, nigh a bushel. Oh, that we might all be gleaners! 

Elihu Burritt learned many things while toiling in a 
blacksmith's shop. Abercrombie, the world-renowned 
philosopher, was a philosopher in Scotland, and he got his 
philosophy, or the chief part of it, while, as a physician, 
he was waiting for the door of the sick-room to open. Yet 
ho\v many there are in this day who say they are so busy 
they have no time for mental or spiritual improvement; 
the great duties of life cross the field like strong reapers, 
and carry off all the hours, and there is only here and 
there a fragment left, that is not worth gleaning. Ah, 
my friends, you could go into the busiest day and busiest 
week of your life and find golden opportunities, which, 
gathered, might at last make a whole sheaf for the Lord's 
garner. It is the stray opportunities and the stray privi- 
leges which, taken up and bound together and beaten out, 
will at last fill you with much joy. 

There are a few moments left worth the gleaning. 
Now, Euth, to the field ! May each one have a measure 
full and running over! Oh, you gleaners, to the field! 
And if there be in your .household an aged one or a sick 
relative that is not strong enough to come forth and toil in 
this field, then let Euth take home to feeble Naomi this 
sheaf of gleaning: "He that goeth forth and weepeth, 
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with re- 
joicing, bringing his sheaves with him." May the Lord 
God of Euth and Naomi be our portion forever! 



THE THREE RINGS. 



" Put a ring on bis hand." — Luke xv: 22. 

I will not rehearse the familiar story of the fast young 
man of the parable. You know what a splendid home he 
left. You know what a hard time he had. And you re- 
member how after that season of vagabondage and 
prodigality he resolved to go and weep out his sorrows on 
the bosom of parental forgiveness. Well, there is great 
excitement one day in front of the door of the old farm- 
house. The servants come rushing up and say: " What's 
the matter? What is the matter?" But before they 
quite arrive, the old man cries out: " Put a ring on his 
hand." What a seeming absurdity! What can such a 
wretched mendicant as this fellow that is tramping on to- 
ward the house want with a ring? Oh, he is the prodigal 
son. No more tending of the swine-trough. No more 
longing for the pods of the carob-tree. No more blistered 
feet. Off with the rags! On with the robe! Out with 
the ring! Even so does God receive every one of us when 
we come back. There are gold rings, and pearl rings, and 
carnelian rings, and diamond rings; but the richest ring 
that ever flashed on the vision is that which our Father 
puts upon a forgiven soul. 

I know that the impression is abroad among some pco- 

(197) 



198 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

pie that religion bemeans and belittles a man; that it takes 
all the sparkle out of his soul; that he has to exchange a 
roistering independence for an ecclesiastical strait-jacket. 
Not so. When a man becomes a Christian, he does not go 
down, he starts upward. Eeligion multiplies one by ten 
thousand. Nay, the multiplier is in infinity. It is not a 
blotting out — it is a polishing, it is an arborescence, it is 
an efflorescence, it is an irradiation. When a man comes 
into the kingdom of God he is not sent into a menial serv- 
ice, but the Lord God Almighty from the palaces of 
heaven calls upon the messenger angels that wait upon the 
throne to fly and " put a ring on his hand." In Christ are 
the largest liberty, and brightest joy, and highest honor, 
and richest adornment. " Put a ring on his hand." 

I remark, in the first place, that when Christ receives a 
soul into His love, He puts upon him the ring of adop- 
tion. Eight or ten years ago, in my church in Phila- 
delphia, there came the representative of the Howard 
Mission of New York. He brought with him eight or ten 
children of the street that he had picked up, and he 
was trying to find for them Christian homes; and as the 
little ones stood on the pulpit and sung, our hearts melted 
within us. At the close of the services a great-hearted 
wealthy man came up and said: " I'll take this little 
bright-eyed girl, and I'll adopt her as one of my own 
children;" and he took her by the hand, lifted her into Iris 
carriage, and went away. 

The next day, while we were in the church gathering up 
garments for the poor of New York, this little child came 
back with a bundle under her arm, and she said: " There's 



THE THREE RINGS. 100 

my old dress; perhaps some of the poor children would 
like to have it," while she herself was in bright and beau- 
tiful array, and those who more immediately examined her 
said that she had a ring on her hand. It was a ring of 
adoption. 

There are a great mauy persons who pride themselves 
on their ancestry, and they glory over the royal blood that 
pours through their arteries. In their line there was a 
lord, or a duke, or a prime minister, or a king. But when 
the Lord, our Father, puts upon us the ring of His adop- 
tion, we become the children of the Ruler of all nations. 
" Behold what mannei of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God," It 
matters not how poor our garments may be in this world, 
or how scant our bread, or how mean the hut we live in, 
if we have that ring of Christ's adoption upon our hand 
we are assured of eternal defenses. 

Adopted! Why, then, we are brothers and sisters to il] 
the good of earth and heaven. We have the family name, 
the family dress, the family keys, the family wardrobe. 
The Father looks after us, robes us, defends us, blesses us. 
We have royal blood in our veins, and there are crowns in 
our line. If we are His children, then princes and prin- 
cesses. It is only a question of time when we get our coro- 
net. Adopted ! Then we have the family secrets. ' ' The 
secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 
Adopted! Then we have the family inheritance, and in 
the day when our Father shall divide the riches of heaven 
we shall take our share of the mansions and palaces and 
temples. Henceforth let us boast no more of an earthly 



200 HEW TABERHACLE SERMOHS. 

ancestry. The insignia of eternal glory is our coat of 
arms. This ring of adoption puts upon us all honor and 
all privilege. Now we can take the words of Charles 
Wesley, that prince of hymn-makers, and sing: 

" Come, let us join our friends above, 
Who have obtained the prize, 
And on the eagle wings of love 
To joy celestial rise. 

" Let all the saints terrestrial sing 
With those to glory gone ; 
For all the servants of our King, 
In heaven and earth, are one." 

I have been told that when any of the members of any 
of the great secret societies of this country are in a distant 
city and are in any kind of trouble, and are set upon by 
enemies, they have only to give a certain signal and the 
members of that organization will flock around for de- 
fense. And when any man belongs to this great Christian 
brotherhood, if he gets in trouble, in trial, in persecution, 
in temptation, he has only to show this ring of Christ's 
adoption, and all the armed cohorts of heaven will come to 
his rescue. 

Still further, when Christ takes a soul into His love 
He puts upon it a marriage-rmg. Now, that is not a 
whim of mine: *' And I will betroth thee unto Me for- 
ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteous- 
ness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in 
mercies/' (Hosea ii: 19.) At the wedding altar the 
bridegroom puts a ring upon the hand of the bride, sigm- 



THE THREE RINGS. 201 

fying love and faithfulness. Trouble may come upon the 
household, and the carpets may go, the pictures may go, 
the piano may go, everything else may go — the last thing 
that goes is that marriage-ring, for it is considered sacred. 
In the burial hour it is withdrawn from the hand and kept 
in a casket, and sometimes the box is opened on an anni- 
versary day, and as you look at that ring you see under its 
arch a long procession of precious memories. Within the 
golden circle of that ring there is room for a thousand 
sweet recollections to revolve, and you think of the great 
contrast between the hour when, at the close of the " Wed- 
ding March," under the flashing lights and amid the 
aroma of orange-blossoms, you set that ring on the round 
finger of the plump hand, and that other hour when, at 
the close of the exhaustive watching, when you knew that 
the soul had fled, you took from the hand, which gave 
back no responsive clasp, from that emaciated finger, the 
ring that she had worn so long and worn so well. 

On some anniversary day you take up that ring, and 
you repolish it until all the old luster comes back, and you 
can see in it the flash of eyes that long ago ceased to 
weep. Oh, it is not an unmeaning thing when I tell you 
that when Christ receives a soul into His keeping He puts 
on it a marriage-ring. He endows you from that moment 
with all His wealth. You are one — Christ and the soul — 
one in sympathy, one in affection, one in hope. 

There is no power in earth or hell to effect a divorce- 
ment after Christ and the soul are united. Other kings 
have turned out their companions when they got weary of 
them, and sent them adrift from the palace gate. 



202 NEW TABEKXACLE BEBMOHS. 

Ahasnerus banished Yashti: Xapoleon forsook Josephine; 
but Clirist is the husband that is true forever. Having 
loved you once. He loves you to the end. Did they not try 
to divorce Margaret, the Scotch girl, from Jesus? They 
said: " You must give up your religion. " She said: " I 
can't give up my religion." And so they took her down 
to the beach of the sea, and they drove in a stake at low- 
water mark, and they fastened her to it, expecting that as 
the tide came up her faith would fail. The tide began to 
rise, and came up higher and higher, and to the girdle, 
and to the lip, and in the last moment, just as the wave 
was washing her soul into glory, she shouted the praises of 
Jesus. 

Oh, no, you can not separate a soul- from Christ! It is 
an everlasting marriage. Battle and storm and darkness 
can not do it. Is it too much exultation for a man, who 
is but dust and ashes like myself, to cry out this morn- 
ing: " I am persuaded that neither height, nor depth, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor any other creature shall sejjarate me 
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord " ? 
Glory be to God that when Christ and the scul are married 
they are bound by a chain, a golden chain — if I might say 
so — a chain with one link, and that one link the golden 
ring of God's everlasting love. 

1 go a step further, and tell you that when Christ re- 
ceives a soul into His love He puts on him the ring of 
festivity. You know that it has been the custom in all 
ages to bestow rings on very happy occasions. There is 
nothing more appropriate for a birthday gift than a ring. 



THE THREE RINGS. 203 

You delight to bestow such a gift upon your children at 
such a time. It means joy, hilarity, festivity. "Well, 
when this old man of the text wanted to tell how glad he 
was that his boy had got back, he expressed it in this way. 
Actually, before he ordered sandals to be put on his bare 
feet; before he ordered the fatted calf to be killed to ap- 
pease the boy's hunger, he commanded: " Put a ring on 
his hand." 

Oh, it is a merry time when Christ and the soul are 
united! Joy of forgiveness! What a splendid thing it is 
to feel that all is right between me and God. What a 
glorious thing it is to have God just take up all the sins of 
my life and put them in one bundle, and then fling them 
into the depths of the sea, never to rise again, never to be 
talked of again. Pollution all gone. Darkness all 
illumined. God reconciled. The prodigal home. " Put 
a ring on his hand." 

Every day I find happy Christian people. I find some 
of them with no second coat, some of them in huts and 
tenement houses, not one earthly comfort afforded them; 
and yet they are as hapjDy as happy can be. They sing 
" Rock of Ages "as no other people in the world sing it. 
They never wore any jewelry in their life but one gold 
ring, and that was the ring of God's undying affection. 
Oh, how happy religion makes us! Did it make you 
gloomy and sad? Did you go with your head cast down? 
I do not think you got religion, my brother. That is not 
the effect of religion. True religion is a joy. " Her 
ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace." 



204 XEW TABERXACLE SERMOXS. 

Why, religion lightens all our burdens. It smooths all 
our way. It interprets all our sorrows. It changes the 
jar of earthly discord for the peal of festal bells. In front 
of the naming furnace of trial it sets the forge on which 
scepters are hammered out. Would you not like to-day to 
come up from the swine-feeding and try this religion? 
All the joys of heaven would come out and meet you, and 
God would cry from the throne: "Put a ring on his 
band." 

You are not hapjoy. I see it. There is no peace, and 
sometimes you laugh when you feel a great deal mere like 
crying. The world is a cheat. It first wears you down 
with its follies, then it kicks you out into darkness. It 
comes back from the massacre of a million souls to at- 
tempt the destruction of your soul to-day. Xo peace out 
of God, but here is the fountain that can slake the thirst. 
Here is the harbor where you can drop safe anchorage. 

Would you not like, I ask you — not perfunctorily, but 
as one brother might talk to another — would you not like 
to have a pillow of rest to put your head on? And would 
you not like, when you retire at night, to feel that all is 
well, whether you wake up to-morrow morning at six 
o'clock, or sleep the sleep that knows no waking? Would 
you not like to exchange this awful uncertainty about the 
future for a glorious assurance of heaven? Accept of the 
Lord Jesus to-day, and all is well. If on your way home 
some peril should cross the street and dash your life out, it 
would not hurt you. You would rise up immediately. 
You would stand in the celestial streets. You would be 
amid the great throng that forever worship and are forever 



THE THEEE KINGS. 205 

happy. If this day some sudden disease should come upon 
you,, it would not frighten you. If you knew you were go- 
ing you could give a calm farewell to your beautiful home 
on earth, and know that you are going right into the com- 
panionship of those who have already got beyond the toil- 
ing and the weeping. 

You feel on Saturday night different from the way you 
feel any other night of the week. You come home from 
the bank, or the store, or the shop, and you say: " Well, 
now my week's work is done, and to-morrow is Sunday." 
It is a pleasant thought. There is refreshment and recon- 
struction in the very idea. Oh, how pleasant it will be, if, 
when we get through the day of our life, and we go and lie 
down in our bed of dust, we can realize: " Well, now 
the work is all done, and to-morrow is Sunday — an ever- 
lasting Sunday." 

" Oh, when, thou city of my God, 
Shall I thy courts ascend? 
Where congregations ne'er break up, 
And Sabbaths have no end." 

There are people in this house to-day who are very near 
the eternal world. If you are Christians, I bid you be of 
good cheer. Bear with you our congratulations to the 
bright city. Aged men, who will soon be gone, take with 
you our love for our kindred in the better land, and when 
you seft them, tell them that we are soon coming. Only a 
few more sermons to preach and hear. Only a few more 
heart-aches. Only a few more toils. Only a few more 
tears. And then — what an entrancing spectacle will open 
before us! 



200 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

" Beautiful heaven, where all is light, 
Beautiful angels clothed in white, 
Beautiful strains that never tire, 
Beautiful harps through all the choir; 
There shall I join the chorus sweet, 
VYorshiping at the Saviour's feet." 

I stand before you on this Sabbath, the last Sabbath 
preceding the great feast-day in this Church. On the next 
LordVday the door of communion will be open, and you 
will all be invited to come in. And so I apj^roach you now 
with a general invitation, not picking out here and there a 
man, or here and there a woman, or here and there a 
child; but giving you an unlimited invitation, saying: 
ft Come, for all things are now ready." "We invite you to 
the warm heart of Christ, and the inclosure of the Chris- 
tian Church. I know a great many think that the Church 
does not amount to much — that it is obsolete; that it did 
its work and is gone now, so far as all usefulness is con- 
cerned. It is the happiest place I have ever been in ex- 
ce]3t my own home. 

I know there are some peojile who say they are Chris- 
tians who seem to get along without any help from others, 
and who culture solitary piety. They do not want any 
ordinances. I do uot belong to that class. I can not get 
along without them. There are so many things in this 
world that take my attention from God, and Christ, and 
heaven, that I want all the helps of all the symbols and of 
all the Christian associations; and I want around about me 
a solid phalanx of men who love God and keej3 His com- 
mandments. Are there any here who would like to enter 



THE THKEE KINGS. 207 

into that association? Then by a simple, child -like faith, 
apply for admission into the visible Church, and yon will 
be received. JS"o questions asked about your past history 
or present surroundings. Only one test — do you love 
Jesus? 

Baptism does not amount to anything, say a great many 
people; but the Lord Jesus declared, " He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved, " putting baptism and faith 
side by side. And an apostle declares, " Bepent and be 
baptized, every one of you." I do not stickle for any par- 
ticular mode of baptism, but I jmt great emphasis on the 
fact that you ought to be baptized. Yet no more em- 
phasis than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Head of the 
Church, puts upon it. 

The world is going to lose a great many of its votaries 
next Sabbath. We give you warning. There is a great 
host coming in to stand under the banner of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Will you be among them? It is going to be a 
great harvest-day. Will you be among the gathered 
sheaves? 

Some of you have been thinking on this subject year after 
year. You have found out that this world is a poor por- 
tion. You want to be Christians. You have come almost 
into the kingdom of God; but there you stop, forgetful of 
the fact that to be almost saved is not to be saved at all. 
Oh, my brother, after having come so near to the door of 
mercy, if you turn back, you will never come at all. 
After all you have heard of the goodness of God, if you 
turn away and die, it will not be because you did not have 
a good oiler. 



208 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

" God's spirit will not always strive 

With hardened, self -destroying man; 
Ye who persist His love to grieve 
May never hear his voice again." 

May God Almighty this hour move upon your soul and 
bring you back from the husks of the wilderness to the 
Father's house, and set you at the banquet, and " put a 
ring on your hand. " 



HOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 



" If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathe- 
ma Maranatha." — I Cor. xvi: 22. 

The smallest lad in the house knows the meaning of all 
those words except the last two, Anathema Maranatha. 
Anathema, to cut off. Maranatha, at His coming. So 
the whole passage might be read: " If any man love not 
the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cut off at His coming. " 
Well, how could the tender-hearted Paul say that? We 
have seen him with tears discoursing about human want, 
and flushed with excitement about human sorrow; and 
now he throws those red-hot iron words into this letter to 
the Corinthians. Had he lost his patience? Oh, no. 
Had he resigned his confidence in the Christian religion? 
Oh, no. Had the world treated him so badly that he had 
become its sworn enemy? Oh, no. It needs some ex- 
planation, I confess, and I shall proceed to show by what 
process Paul came to the vehement utterance of my text. 
Before I close, if God shall give His Spirit, you shall cease 
to be surprised at the exclamation of the Apostle, and you 
yourselves will employ the same emphasis, declaring, " If 
any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be 
Anathema Maranatha." 

If the photographic art had been discovered early 

(209) 



210 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

enough, we should have had the facial proportions of 
Christ — the front face, the side face, Jesus sitting, Jesus 
standing — provided He had submitted to that art; but 
since the sun did not become a portrait painter until eight- 
een centuries after Christ, our idea about the Saviour's 
personal appearance is all guess work. Still, tradition 
tells us that He was the most infinitely beautiful being 
that ever walked our small earth. If His features had 
been rugged, and His gait had been ungainly, that would 
not have hindered Him from being attractive. Many men 
you have known and loved have had few charms of physi- 
ognomy. Wilberforce was not attractive in face. Socrates 
was repulsive. Suwarrow, the great Eussian hero, looked 
almost an imbecile. And some whom you have known, 
and honored, and loved, have not had very great attract- 
iveness of personal appearance. The shape of the mouth, 
and the nose, and the eyebrow, did not hinder the soul 
from shining through the cuticle of the face in all-power- 
ful irradiation. 

But to a lovely exterior Christ joined all loveliness of 
disposition. Run through the galleries of heaven, and find 
out that He is a non-such. The sunshine of His love 
mingling with, the shadows of His sorrows, crossed by the 
crystalline stream of His tears and the crimson flowing 
forth of His blood, make a picture worthy of beiug called 
the masterpiece of the eternities. Hung on the wall of 
heaven, the celestial population would be enchanted but 
for the fact that they have the grand and magnificent origi- 
nal, and they want no picture. But Christ having gone 
away from earth, we are dependent upon four indistinct 



HOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 211 

pictures. Matthew took one, Mark another, Luke another, 
and John another. I care not which jricture you take, it 
is lovely. Lovely? He was altogether lovely. 

He had a way of taking up a dropsical limb without 
hurting it, and of removing the cataract from the eye 
without the knife, and of starting the circulation through 
the shrunken arteries without the shock of the electric bat- 
tery, and of putting intelligence into the dull stare of 
lunacy, and of restringing the auditory nerve of the deaf 
ear, and of striking articulation into the stiff tongue, and 
of making the stark-naked madman dress himself and ex- 
change tombstone for ottoman, and of unlocking from the 
skeleton grip of death the daughter of Jairus to embosom 
her in her glad father's arms. Oh, He was lovely — sit- 
ting, standing, kneeling, lying down — always lovely. 

Lovely in His sacrifice. Why, He gave up everything 
for us. Home, celestial companionship, music of seraphic 
harps, balmy breath of eternal summer, all joy, all light, 
all music, and heard the gates slam shut behind Him as 
He came out to fight for our freedom, and with bare feet 
plunged on the sharp javelins of human and satanic hate, 
until His blood spurted into the faces of those who slew 
Him. You want the soft, low, minor key of sweetest 
music to describe the pathos; but it needs an orchestra, 
under swinging of an archangel's baton, reaching from 
throne to manger, to drum and trumpet tl e doxologies of 
His praise. He took everybody's trouble — the leper's 
sickness, the widow's dead boy, the harlot's shame, the 
Galilean fisherman's poor luck, the invalidism of Simon's 
mother-m-law,, the sting of Malchus' amputated ear. 



212 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Some people cry very easily, and for some it is very diffi- 
cult to cry. A great many tears on some cheeks do not 
mean so much as one tear on another cheek. What is it 
that I see glittering in the mild eye of Jesus? It was all 
the sorrows of earth, and the woes of hell, from which He 
had plucked our souls, accreted into one transparent drop, 
lingering on the lower eyelash until it fell on a cheek red 
with the slap of human hands — just one salt, bitter, burn- 
ing tear of Jesus. No wonder the rock, the sky, and the 
cemetery were in consternation when He died! No won- 
der the universe was convulsed! It was the Lord God 
Almighty bursting into tears. Now, supjDOse that, not- 
withstanding all this, a man can not have any affection for 
Him. What ought to be done with such hard behavior? 

It seems to me that there ought to be some chastisement 
for a man who will not love such a Christ. Does it not 
make your blood tingle to think of Jesus coming over the 
tens of thousands of miles that seem to separate God from 
us, and then to see a man jostle Him out, and push Him 
back, and shut the door in His face, and trample upon 
His entreaties? While you may not be able to rise up to 
the towering excitement of the Aj>ostle in my text, you 
can at any rate somewhat understand his feelings when 
he cried out: " After all this, ' if a man love not the 
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha/ " 

Just look at the injustice of not loving Him. Now, 
there is nothing that excites a man like injustice. You go 
along the street, and you see your little child buffeted, or a 
ruffian comes and takes a boy's hat and throws it into the 
ditch. You say: " What great meanness, what injustice 



HOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 213 

that is!" You can not stand injustice. I remember, in 
my boyhood days, attending a large meeting in Tripler 
Hall, New York. Thousands of people were huzzaing, 
and the same kind of audiences were assembled at the 
same time in Boston, Edinburgh, and London. Why? 
Because the Madaii family, in Italy, had been robbed of 
their Bible. " A little thing," you say. Ah, that injus- 
tice was enough to arouse the indignation of a world. But 
while we are so sensitive about injustice as between man 
and man, how little sensitive we are about injustice be- 
tween man and God. If there ever was a fair and square 
purchase of anything, then Christ purchased us. He paid 
for us, not in shekels, not in ancient coins inscribed with 
effigies of Hercules, or iEgina's tortoise, or lyre of Mity- 
lene, but in two kinds of coin — one red, the other glitter- 
ing — blood and tears! If anything is purchased and paid 
for, ought not the goods to be delivered? If you have 
bought property and given the money, do you not want to 
come into possession of it? " Yes," you say, " I will have 
it. I bought and paid for it." And you will go to law 
for it, and you will denounce the man as a defrauder. 
Ay, if need be, you will hurl him into jail. You will say: 
" I am bound to get that property. I bought it. I paid 
for it!" 

Now, transpose the case. Suppose Jesus Christ to be 
the wronged purchaser on the one side, and the impenitent 
soul on the other, trying to defraud Him of that which 
He bought at such au exorbitant price, how do you feel 
about that injustice? How do you feel toward that 
spiritual fraud, turpitude and perfidy? A man with an 



214 HEW TABERNACLE SERMON'S. 

ardent temperament rises and he says that such injustice 
as between mau and man is bad enough, but between man 
and God it is reprehensible and intolerable, and he brings 
his fist down on the pew, and he says: " I can stand this 
injustice no longer. After all this purchase, i if any man 
love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema 
Maranatha ' V s 

I go still further, and show you how suicidal it is for a 
man not to love Christ. If a man gets in trouble, and he 
can not get out, we have only one feeling toward him — 
sympathy and a desire to help him. If he has failed for a 
vast amount of money, and can not pay more than ten 
cents on a dollar — ay, if he can not pay anything — though 
his creditors may come after him like a pack of hounds, 
we sympathize with him. We go to his store, or house, 
and we express our condolence. But suppose the day 
before that man failed, William E. Dodge had come into 
his store and said: " My friend, I hear you are in trouble. 
I have come to help you. If ten thousand dollars will see 
you through your perplexity, I have a loan of that amount 
for you. Here is a check for the amount of that loan." 
Suppose the man said: " With that ten thousand dollars I 
could get through until next spring, and then everything 
will be all right; but, Mr. Dodge, I don't want it; I won't 
take it; I would rather fail than take it; I don't even 
thank you for offering it. " Your sympathy for that man 
would cease immediately. You would say: " He had a 
fair offer; he might have got out; he wants to fail; he 
refuses all help; now let him fail." There is no one in all 
this house who would have any sympathy for that man. 



HOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 215 

But do not let us be too hasty. Christ hears of our 
spiritual embarrassments. He finds that we are on the 
very verge of eternal defalcation. He finds the law knock- 
ing at our door with this dun: " Pay me what thou 
owest." 

We do not know which way to turn. Pay? We 
can not pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. 
Well, Christ comes in and says: " Here is My name; you 
can use My name. Your name would be worthless, but 
My red handwriting on the back of this obligation will get 
you through anywhere." ISTow suppose the soul says: " I 
know I am in debt; I can't meet these obligations either 
in time or eternity; but, oh, Christ, I want not Thy help; 
I ask not Thy rescue. Go away from me." You would 
say: " That man, why, he deserves to die. He had the 
offer of help; he would not take it. He is a free agent; 
he ought to have what he wants; he chooses death rather 
than life. Ought you not give him freedom of choice?" 
Though awhile ago there was only one ardent man who 
understood the Apostle, now there are hundreds in the 
house who can say, and do say within themselves: " After 
all this ingratitude, and rejection, and obstinacy, ' if any 
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema 
Maranatha.' " 

I go a step further, and say it is most cruel for a man 
not to love Jesus. The meanest thing I could do for you 
would be needlessly to hurt your feelings. Sharp words 
sometimes cut like a dagger. An unkind look will some- 
times rive like the lightning. An unkind deed may over- 
master a sensitive spirit, and if you have made up your 



8Hl JfSW TaLZEXaCLE ?IRM^\r. 

mind that you have done wrong to any one, it dot - 
take minutes to make up your mind to go and 

apologize. Xow, Christ is a bundle of delicacy and sensi- 
tiveness. How you hare shocked His nerves! How you 
have broken His heart! 

Did you. my brother, ever measure the meaning of that 
one passage: 44 Behold, I stand at the door and knock " ? 
It never came t me as it did this morning while I was 
thinking on this subject. " Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock. " Some January day, the thermometer five 
degrees below zero, the wind and sleet beating mercilessly 
against you, you go up the steps of a house where you have 
a very important errand. You knock with one knuckle. 
No answer. You are very earnest, and you are freezing. 
The next time you knock harder. After awhile with your 
fist you beat against the door. You must get in, but the 
inmate is careless or stubborn, and he does not want you 
in. Your errand is a failure. Yc a g : away. 

The Lord Jesus Christ comes upon the a&epe :: your 
heart, and with very sore hand he knocks hard at the door 
:ir souL He is standing in the cold blasts of human 
suffering. He knocks. He says: " Let me in. I have 
come a great way. I have come all the way from N 
reth, from Bethlehem, from Golgotha. Let Mr in. I am 
shivering and blue with the cold. Let Me in. My feet 
are bare but for their covering of blood. My head is un- 
covered but for a turban of brambles. By all these 
wounds of foot, and head, and heart, I beg you to let Me 
in. Oh, I have been here a great while, and the night is 
mg darker. I am faint with hunger. I am dying to 



SOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 21? 

get in. Oh, lift the latch— shove back the bolt! Won't 
you let Me in? Won't you? ' Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock!' " 

But after awhile, my brother, the scene will change. It 
will be another door, but Christ will be on the other side 
of it. He will be on the inside, and the rejected sinner 
will be on the outside, and the sinner will come up and 
knock at the door, and say: " Let me in, let me in. I 
have come a great way. I came all the way from earth. 
I am sick and dying. Let me in. The merciless storm 
beats my unsheltered head. The wolves of a great night 
are on my track. Let me in. With both fists I beat 
against this door. Oh, let me in. Oh, Christ, let me in. 
Oh, Holy Ghost, let me in. Oh, God, let me in. Oh, my 
glorified kindred, let me in." No answer save the voice 
of Christ, who shall say: " Sinner, when I stood at your 
door you would not let Me in, and now you are standing at 
My door, and I can not let you in. The day of your grace 
is past. Officer of the law, seize him." And while the 
arrest is going on, all the myriads of heaven rise on gallery 
and throne, and cry with loud voice, that makes the eter- 
nal city quake from capstone to foundation, saying: " If 
any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be 
Anathema Maranatha." 

Sabbath audience in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and all 
to whom these words shall come on both sides the sea, 
notice here the tremendous alternative : it is not whether 
you live in Pierrepont Street or Carlton Avenue, walk 
Trafalgar Square or the " Canongate;" nor whether your 
dress shall be black or brown; nor whether you shall be 



213 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

robust or an invalid; nor whether you shall live on the 
banks of the Hudson, the Shannon, the Seine, the 
Thames, the Tiber; but it is a question whether you will 
love Christ or suffer banishment; whether you will give 
yourselves to Him who owns you or fall under the mill- 
stone; whether you will rise to glories that have no ter- 
minus or plunge to a depth which has no bottom. I do 
not see how you can take the ten-thousandth part of a 
second to decide it, wdien there are two worlds fastened at 
opposite ends of a swivel, and the swivel turns on one 
point, and that point is now, now. Is it not fair that you 
love Him? Is it not right that you love Him? Is it not 
imperative that you love Him? What is it that keeps you 
from rushing up and throwing the arms of your affection 
about His neck? 

My text pronounces Anathema Maranatha upon all 
those who refuse to love Christ. Anathema — cut off. 
Cut off from light, from hope, from peace, from heaven. 
Oh, sharp, keen, sword-like words! Cut off! Everlast- 
ingly cut off! Behold, therefore, the goodness and sever- 
ity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, 
goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou 
also shalt be cut off. Maranatha — that is the other word. 
" When he comes " is the meaning of it. 

Will He come? I see no signs of it. I looked into the 
sky as I rode down to church. I saw no signs of the com- 
ing. No signal of God's appearance. The earth stands 
solid on its foundation. No cry of welcome or of woe. 
Will He come! He will. Maranatha! Hear it ye 
mountains, and prepare to fall. Ye cities, and prepare to 



HOW HE CAME TO SAY IT. 219 

burn. Ye righteous, and prepare to reign. Ye wicked, 
and prepare to die. Maranatha! Maranatlia! 

But, oh, my .brother, I am not so aroused by that coming 
as I am by a previous coming, and that is the coming of 
our death hour, which will fix everything for us. I can 
not help now, while preaching, asking myself the question 
— Am I ready for that? If I am ready for the first I will 
be ready for the next. Are you ready for the emergency? 
Shall I tell you when your death hour will come? " Oh, 
no," says some one, " I don't want to know. I would 
rather not know." Some one says: " I would rather 
know, if you can tell me." I will tell you. It will be at 
the most unexpected moment, when you are most busy, 
and when you think you can be least spared. I can not 
exactly say whether it will be in the noon, or at the sun- 
down when people are coming home, or in the morning 
when the world is waking up, or while the clock is striking 
twelve at night. But I tell you what I think, that with 
some of you it will be before next Saturday night. 

A minister of the Gospel said to an audience: "Before 
next Sabbath some of you will be gone." And a man said 
during the week: " I shall watch now, and if no one dies 
in our congregation during this week I shall go and tell 
the minister his falsehood. " A man standing next to him 
said: "Why, it may be yourself." "Oh, no," he re- 
plied; " I shall live on to be an old man." That night he 
breathed his last. 

Standing before some who shall be launched into the 
great eternity, what are your equipments? About to 
jump, where will you land? Oh, the subject is over- 



220 NEW TABERNACLE SEKMOKS. 

whelming to me; and when I say these things to yon, I 
say them to myself. " Lord, is it I? Is it I?" Some of 
ns part to-night never to meet again. If never before, I 
now here commit my soul into the keeping of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. I throw my sinful heart upon His infinite 
mercy. But some of you will not do that. You will go 
over to the store to-morrow, and your comrades will say: 
" Where were you yesterday?" You will say: " I heard 
Talmage preach, and I don't believe what he preaches." 
And you will go on and die in your sins. 

Feeling that you are bound unto death eternal I solemnly 
take leave of you. Be careful of your health, for when 
your respiration gives out all your good times will have 
ended. Be careful in walking near a scaffold, for one fall- 
ing brick or stone might usher you into the great eternity 
for which you have no preparation. A few months, or 
weeks, or days, or hours will pass on, and then you will see 
the last light, and hear the last music, and have the last 
pleasant emotion, and a destroyed eternity will rush upon 
you. Farewell, oh, doomed spirit ! As you shove off from 
hope, I wave you this last salutation. Oh, it is hard to 
part forever and forever! I bid you one long, last, bitter, 
eternal adieu! 



CASTLE JESUS. 



" Who have fled for refuge." — Heb. vi: 18. 

Paul is here speaking of the consolations of Christians. 
He styles them these " who have fled for refuge." 

Moses established six cities of refuge — three on the east 
side of the river Jordan, and three on the west. When a 
man had killed any one accidentally he fled to one of these 
cities. The roads leading to them were kept perfectly 
good, so that when a man started for the refuge nothing 
might impede him. Along the cross-roads, and wherever 
there might be any mistake about the way, there were 
signs put up pointing in the right way, with the word 
" Refuge." Having gained the limits of one of these 
cities the man was safe, and the mothers of the priests 
provided for him. 

Some of us have seen our peril, and have fled to Christ, 
and feel that we shall never be captured. We are among 
those " who have fled for refuge." Christ is represented 
in the Bible as a Tower, a High Rock, a Fortress, and a 
Shelter. If you have seen any of the ancient castles of 
Europe, you know that they are surrounded by trenches, 
across which there is a draw-bridge. If an enemy ap- 
proach, the people, for defense, would get into the castle, 
have the trenches filled with water, and lift up the draw- 



222 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

bridge. Whether to a city of safety, or a tower, Paul 
refers, I know not, and care not, for in any case he means 
Christ, the safety of the soul. 

But why talk of refuge? Who needs it, if the refuge 
spoken of be a city or a castle, into which men fly for 
safety? It is all sunlight here. No sound of war in our 
streets. We do not hear the rush of armed men against 
the doors of our dwellings. We do not come with weapons 
to church. Our lives are not at the mercy of an assassin. 
Why, then, talk of refuge? 

Alas! I stand before a company of imperiled men. ~No 
flock of sheep was ever so threatened or endangered of a 
pack of wolves; no ship was ever so beaten of a storm; no 
company of men were ever so environed of a band of sav- 
ages. A refuge you must have, or fall before an all-devour- 
ing destruction. There are not so many serpents in 
Africa; there are not so many hyenas in Asia; there are 
not so many panthers in the forest, as there are transgres- 
sions attacking my soul. I will take the best unregener- 
ated man anywhere, and say to him, You are utterly cor- 
rupt. If all the sins of your past life were marshaled in 
single file, they would reach from here to hell. If you 
have escaped all other sins, the fact that you have rejected 
the mission of the Son of God is enough to condemn you 
forever, pushing you off into bottomless darkness, struck 
by ten thousand hissing thunder-bolts of Omnipotent wrath. 

You are a sinner. The Bible says it, and your con- 
science affirms it. Not a small sinner, or a moderate sin- 
ner, or a tolerable sinner, but a great sinner, a protracted 
sinner, a vile sinner, an outrageous sinner, a condemned 



CASTLE JESUS. 223 

sinner. As God, with His all-scrutinizing gaze, looks 
upon you to-day, He can not find one sound spot in your 
soul. Sin has put scales on your eyes, and deadened your 
ear with an awful deafness, and palsied your right arm, 
and stunned your sensibilities, and blasted you with an in- 
finite blasting. The Bible, which you admit to be true, 
affirms that you are diseased from the crown of your head 
to the sole of your foot. You are unclean; you are a leper. 
Believe not me, but believe God's Word, that over and 
over again announces, in language that a fool might un- 
derstand, the total and complete depravity of the un- 
changed heart: " The heart is deceitful above all things, 
and desperately wicked." 

In addition to the sins of your life there are uncounted 
troubles in pursuit of you. Bereavements, losses, disap- 
pointments are a flock of vultures ever on the wing. Did 
you get your house built, and furnished, and made com- 
fortable any sooner than misfortune came in without 
knocking, and sat beside you — a skeleton apparition? 
Have not pains shot their poisoned arrows, and fevers 
kindled their fire in your brain? Ma,ny of you, for years, 
have walked on burning marl. You stepped out of one 
disaster into another. You may, like Job, have cursed the 
day in which you were born. This world boils over with 
trouble for you, and you are wondering where the next 
grave will gape, and where the next storm will burst. Oh, 
ye pursued, sinning, dying, troubled, exhausted souls, are 
you not ready now to hear me while I tell you of Christ, 
the Refuge? 

A soldier, during the war, heard of the sickness of his 



224 NEW TABEBNACLE SEEMONS. 

wife and asked for a furlough. It was denied him, and he 
ran away. He was caught, brought back, and sentenced 
to be shot as a deserter. The officer took from his pocket 
a document that announced his death on the following 
morning. As the document was read, the man flinched 
not and showed no sorrow or anxiety. But the officer then 
took from his pocket another document that contained the 
prisoner's pardon. Then he broke down with deep emo- 
tion at the thought of the leniency that had been extended. 
Though you may not appear moved while I tell you of 
the law that thundered its condemnation, while I tell you 
of the pardon and the peace of the Gospel I wonder if they 
will not overcome you. 

Jesus is a safe refuge. Fort Hudson, Fort Pulaski, Fort 
Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Gibraltar, Sebastopol were taken. 
But Jesus is a castle into which the righteous runneth and 
is safe. No battering-ram can demolish its wall. No 
sappers or miners can explode its ramparts, no sturm-bolt 
of perdition leap upon its towers. The weapons that guard 
this fort are omnipotent. Hell shall unlimber its great 
guns as death only to have them dismantled. In Christ 
our sins are pardoned, discomforted, blotted out, forgiven. 
An ocean can not so easily drown a fly as the ocean of 
God's forgiveness swallow up, utterly and forever, our 
transgressions. He is able to save unto the uttermost. 

You who have been so often overcome in a hand-to-hand 
fight with the world, the flesh, and devil, try this fortress. 
Once here, you are safe forever. Satan may charge up the 
steep, and shout amid the uproar of the fight, Forward, to 
his battalions of darkness; but you will stand in the might 







CASTLE JESUS. 225 

of the great God, your Redeemer, safe in the refuge. The 
troubles of life, that once overwhelmed you, may come on 
with their long wagon-trains laden with care and worry- 
ment; and you may hear in their tramp the bereavements 
that once broke your heart; but Christ is your friend, 
Christ your sympathizer, Christ your reward. Safe in the 
refuge ! 

Death at last may lay the siege to your spirit, and the 
shadows of the sepulcher may shake their horrors in the 
breeze, and the hoarse howl of the night wind may be 
mingled with the cry of despair, yet you will shout in 
triumph from the ramparts, and the pale horse shall be 
hurled back on his haunches. Safe in the refuge! To 
this castle I fly. This last fire shall but illumine its towers; 
and the rolling thunders of the judgment will be the salvo 
of its victory. 

Just after Queen Victoria had been crowned — she being 
only nineteen or twenty years of age — Wellington handed 
her a death-warrant for her signature. It was to take the 
life of a soldier in the army. She said to Wellington: 
" Can there nothing good be said of this man?" He said: 
"No; he is a bad soldier, and deserves to die." She took 
up the death-warrant, and it trembled in her hand as she 
again asked: " Does no one know anything good of this 
man?" Wellington said: "I have heard that at his trial 
a man said that he had been a good son to his old moth- 
er." " Then let his life be spared," said the queen, and 
she ordered his sentence commuted. 

Christ is on a throne of grace. Our case is brought be- 
fore him. The question is asked: "Is there any good 

8 



226 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

about this man?" The law saj^s: " None." Justice 
says: "None." Our own conscience says: "None." 
Nevertheless., Christ hands over our pardon, and asks us 
to take it. Oh, the height and depth, the length and 
breadth of his mercy! 

Again, Christ is a near refuge. When we are attacked, 
what advantage is there in having a fortress on the other 
side of the mountain? Many an army has had an intrench- 
ment, but could not get to it before the battle opened. 
Blessed be God, it is no long march to our castle. We 
may get off, with all our troops, from the worst earthly de- 
feat in this stronghold. In a moment we may step from 
the battle into the tower. I sing of a Saviour near. 

During the late war the forts of the North were named 
after the Northern generals, and the forts of the South 
were named after the Southern generals. This fortress of 
our soul I shall call Castle Jesus. I have seen men pur- 
sued of sins that chased them with feet of lightning, and 
yet with one glad leap they bounded into the tower. I 
have seen troubles, with more than the speed and terror of 
a cavalry trooj), dash after a retreating soul, yet were 
hurled back in defeat from the bulwarks. Jesus near! A 
child's cry, a prisoner's prayer, a sailor's death-shriek, a 
pauper's moan reaches him. No pilgrimages on spikes. 
No journeying with a huge pack on your back. No kneel- 
ing in penance in cold vestibule of mercy. But an open 
door! A compassionate Saviour! A present salvation! A 
near refuge! Castle Jesus! 

Oh, why do you not put out your arm and reach it? 
Why do you not fly to it? Why be riddled, and shelled. 



CASTLE JESUS. 227 

and consumed under the rattling bombardment of per- 
dition, when one moment's faith would jriant you in the 
glorious refuge? I preach a Jesus here; a Jesus now; a 
fountain close to your feet; a fiery pillar right over your 
head; bread already broken for your hunger; a crown 
already gleaming for your brow. Hark to the castle gates 
rattling back for your entrance! Hear you not the wel- 
come of those who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon 
the hope set before us? 

Again, it is a universal refuge. A fortress is seldom large 
enough to hold a whole army. I look out upon f ourteen 
hundred millions of the race; and then I look at this fort- 
ress, and I say that there is room enough for all. If it had 
been possible, this salvation would have been monopolized. 
Men would have said: " Let us have all this to ourselves 
— no publicans, no plebeians, no lazzaroni, no converted 
pickpockets. We will ride toward heaven on fierce 
chargers, our feet in golden stirrivps. Grace for lords, and 
dukes, and duchesses, and counts. Let Napoleon and his 
marshals come in, but not the common soldier that fought 
under him. Let the Girards and the Barings come in, 
but not the stevedores that unloaded their cargoes, or the 
men who kept their books. " Heaven would have been a 
glorified Windsor Castle, or Tuileries, or Vatican; and ex- 
clusive aristocrats would have strutted through the golden 
streets to all eternity. 

Thank God, there is mercy for the poor! The great 
Doctor John Mason preached over a hundred times the 
same sermon; and the text was: "To the poor the Gos- 
pel is preached. " Lazarus went up, while Dives went 



228 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

down; and there are candidates for Imperial splendors in 
the back alley, and by the peat-fire of the Irish shanty. 
King Jesus set up His throne in a manger, and made a 
resurrection day for the poor widow of Nain, and sprung 
the gate of heaven wide open, so that all the beggars, and 
thieves, and scoundrels of the universe may come in if they 
will only repent. I can snatch the knife from the mur- 
derer's hand while it is yet dripping with the blood of his 
victim, and tell him of the grace that is sufficient to par- 
don his soul. Do you say that I swing open the gate of 
heaven too far? I swing it open no wider than Christ, 
when He says: " Whosoever will, let him come." Don't 
you want to go in with such a rabble? Then you can stay 
out. 

The whole world will yet come into this refuge. The 
windows of heaven will be opened; God's trumpet of salva- 
tion will sound, and China will come from its tea-fields 
and rice-harvests, and lift itself up into the light. India 
will come forth, the chariots of salvation jostling to pieces 
her Juggernauts. Freezing Greenland, and sweltering 
Abyssinia, will, side by side, press into the kingdom; and 
transformed Bornesian cannibal preach of the resurrection 
of the missionary he has slain. The glory of Calvary will 
tinge the tip of the Pyrenees; and Lebanon cedars shall 
clap their hands; and by one swing of the sickle Christ 
shall harvest nations for the skies. 

I sing a world redeemed. In the rush of the winds that 
set the forest in motion, like giants wrestling on the hills, 
i see the tossing up of the triumphal branches that shall 
wave all along the line of our King as He comes to take 



CASTLE JESUS. 229 

empire. In the stormy diapason of the ocean's organ, and 
the more gentle strains that in the calm come sounding up 
from the crystal and jasper keys at the beach, I hear the 
prophecy: " The earth shall be filled with the knowledge 
of God as the waters fill the sea." 

The gospel morning will come like the natural morning. 
At first it seems only like another hue of the night. Then 
a pallor strikes through the sky, as though a company of 
ministering spirits, pale with tedious watching through the 
night, had turned in their flight upward to look back upon 
the earth. Then a faint glow of fire, as though on a bar- 
ren beach a wrecked mariner was kindling a nickering 
flame. Then chariots and horses of fire racing up and 
down the heavens; then perfect day: " Who is she that 
cometh forth as the morning?" 

Come in, black Hottentot and snow-white Caucasian, 
come in, mitered official and diseased beggar; let all the 
world come in. Room in Castle Jesus! Sound it through 
all lands; sound it by all tongues. Let sermons preach it, 
and bells chime it, and pencils sketch it, and processions 
celebrate it, and bells ring it: Eoom in Castle Jesus! 

Again, Christ is the only refuge. If you were very sick, 
and there was only one medicine that would cure you, how 
anxious you would be to get that medicine. If you were 
in a storm at sea, and you found that the ship could not 
weather it, and there was only one harbor, how anxious 
you would be to get into that harbor. Oh, sin-sick soul, 
Christ is the only medicine; oh, storm-tossed soul, Christ 
is the only harbor. Need I tell a cultured audience like 
this that there is no other name given among men by 



21)0 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

which ye can be saved ? That if you want the handcuffs 
knocked from your wrists, and the hopples from your feet, 
and the icy bands from your heart, there is just one 
Almighty arm in all the universe to do everything? There 
are other fortresses to which you might fly, and other ram- 
parts behind which you might hide, but God will cut to 
pieces, with the hail of His vengeance, all these refuges of 
lies. 

Some of you are foundering in terrible Euroclydon. 
Hark to the howling of the gale, and the splintering of 
the spars, and the starting of the timbers, and the break- 
ing of the billow, clear across the hurricane deck. Down 
she goes! Into the life-boat! Quick! One boat! One 
shore! One oarsman! One salvation! You are polluted; 
there is but one well at which you can wash clean. You 
are enslaved; there is but one proclamation that can 
emancipate. You are blind; there is but one salve that 
can kindle your vision. You are dead; there is but one 
trumpet that can burst the grave. 

I have seen men come near the refuge but not make en- 
trance. They came up, and fronted the gate, and looked 
in, but passed on, and passed down; and they will curse 
their folly through all eternity, that they despised the only 
refuge. Oh ! forget everything else I have said, if you will 
but remember that there is but one atonement, one sacri- 
fice, one justification, one faith, one hope, one Jesus, one 
refuge. There is that old Christian. Many a scar on his 
face tells where trouble lacerated him. He has fought 
with wild beasts at Ephesus. He has had enough misfort- 
une to shadow his countenance with perpetual despair. 



CASTLE JESUS. 231 

Yet lie is full of hope. Has he found any new elixir? 
" No," he says; " I have found Jesus the refuge." 

Christ is our only defense at the last. John Holland, in 
his concluding moment, swept his hand over the Bible, 
and said: " Come, let us gather a few flowers from this 
garden." As it was even-time he said to his wife: " Have 
you lighted the candles?" "No," she said; "we have 
not lighted the candles." " Then," said he, " it must be 
the brightness of the face of Jesus that I see. " 

Ask that dying Christian woman the source of her com- 
fort. Why that supernatural glow on the curtains of the 
death-chamber; and the tossing out of one hand, as if to 
wave the triumph, and the reaching up of the other, as if 
to take a crown? Hosanna on the tongue. Glory beam- 
ing from the forehead. Heaven in the eyes. Spirit de- 
parting. Wings to bear it. Anthems to charm it. 
Open the gates to receive it. Hallelujah! Speak, dying 
Christian — what light do you see? What sounds do you 
hear? The thin lips part. The pale hand is lifted. She 
says: "Jesus the refuge!" Let all in the death-chamber 
stop weeping now. Celebrate the triumph. Take up a 
song. Clap your hands. Shout it. Hallelujah! Halle- 
lujah! 

But this refuge will be of no worth to you unless you lay 
hold of it. The time will come when you will wish that 
you had done so. It will come soon. At an unexpected 
moment it will come. The castle bridge will be drawn up 
and the fortress closed. When you see this discomfiture, 
and look back, and look up at the storm gathering, and 
the billowy darkness of death has rolled upon the sheeted 



232 NEW TABERNACLE SERMON'S. 

flash of the storm, you will discover the utter desolation of 
those who are outside of the refuge. 

What you propose to do in this matter } t ou had better do 
right away. A mistake this morning may never be cor- 
rected. Jesus, the Great Captain of salvation, puts forth 
his wounded hand to-day to cheer you on the race to 
heaven. If you despise it, the ghastliest vision that will 
haunt the eternal darkness of your soul will be the gaping, 
bleeding wounds of the dying Eedeemer. 

Jesus is to be crucified to-day. Think not of it as a day 
that is past. He comes before you to-day weary and worn. 
Here is the cross, and here is the victim. But there are 
no nails, and there are no thorns, and there are no ham- 
mers. Who will furnish these? A man out yonder says: 
" I will furnish with my sins the nails!" Xow we have 
the cross, and the victim, and the nails. But we have no 
thorns. Who will furnish the thorns? A man in the audi- 
ence says: " With my sins I will furnish the thorns!" 
Now we have the cross, the victim, the nails, and the 
thorns. But we have no hammers. Who will furnish the 
hammers? A voice in the audience says: " My hard heart 
shall be the hammer!" Everything is ready now. The 
crucifixion goes out! See Jesus dying! "Behold the 
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." 



STRIPPING THE SLAIN. 



" And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came 
to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in 
Mount Gilboa."— I. Sam. xxxi: 8. 

Some of you were at South Mountain, or Shiloh, or 
BalFs Bluff, or Gettysburg, and I ask you if there is any 
sadder sight than a battle-field after the guns have stopped 
firing? I walked across the field of An tie tarn just after 
the conflict. The scene was so sickening I shall not de- 
scribe it. Every valuable thing had been taken from the 
bodies of the dead, for there are always vultures hovering 
over and around about an army, and they pick up the 
watches, and the memorandum books, and the letters, and 
the daguerreotypes, and the hats, and the coats, applying 
them to their own uses. The dead make no resistance. 
So there are always camp followers going on and after an 
army, as when Scott went down into Mexico, as when 
Napoleon marched up toward Moscow, as when Yon 
Moltke went to Sedan. There is a similar scene in my 
text. 

Saul and his army had been horribly cut to pieces. 
Mount Gilboa was ghastly with the dead. On the morrow 
the stragglers came on to the field, and they lifted the 
latchet of the helmet from under the chin of the dead, and 

1233) 



2oi NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

they picked up the swords and bent them on their knee to 
test the temper of the metal, and they opened the wallets 
and counted the coin. Saul lay dead along the ground, 
eight or nine feet in length, and I suppose the cowardly 
Philistines, to show their bravery, leaped upon the trunk 
of his carcass, and jeered at the fallen slain, and whistled 
through the mouth of the helmet. Before night those cor- 
morants had taken everything valuable from the field: 
" And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines 
came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three 
sons fallen in Mount Gilboa." 

Before I get through to-day I will show you that the 
same process is going on all the world over, and every day, 
and that when men have fallen, Satan and the world, so 
far from pitying them or helping them, go to work re- 
morselessly to take what little is left, thus stripping the 
slain. 

There are tens of thousands of young men every year 
coming from the country to our great cities. They come 
with brave hearts and grand expectations. They think 
they will be Ruf as Choates in the law, or Drapers in chem- 
istry, or A. T. Stewarts in merchandise. The country 
lads sit down in the village grocery, with their feet on the 
iron rod around the red-hot stove, in the evening, talking 
over the prospects of the young man who has gone off to 
the city. Two or three of them think that perils he 
may get along very well and succeed, but the most of them 
prophesy failure; for it is very hard to think that those 
whom we knew in boyhood will ever make any stir in the 
world. 



STRIPPING THE SLAIST. 235 

But our young man has a fine position in a dry-goods 
store. The month is over, lie gets his wages. He is 
not accustomed to have so much money belonging to him- 
self. He is a little excited, and does not know exactly 
what to do with it, and he spends it in some places where 
he ought not. Soon there come u|) new companions and 
acquaintances from the bar-rooms and the saloons of the 
city. Soon that young man begins to waver in the battle 
of temptation, and soon his soul goes down. In a few 
months, or few years, he has fallen. He is morally dead. 
He is a mere corpse of what he once was. The harpies 
of sin snuff up the taint and come on the field. His 
garments gradually give out. He has pawned his watch. 
His health is failing him. His credit perishes. He is too 
poor to stay in the city, and he is too poor to pay his way 
home to the country. Down! down! Why do the low 
fellows of the city now stick to him so closely? Is it to 
help him back to a moral and spiritual life? Oh, no! I 
will tell you why they stay; they are the Philistines strip- 
ping the slain. 

Do not look where I point, but yonder stands a man who 
once had a beautiful home in this city. His house had 
elegant furniture, his children were beautifully clad, his 
name was synonymous with honor and usefulness; but evil 
habit knocked at his front door, knocked at his back door, 
knocked at his parlor door, knocked at his bedroom door. 
Where is the piano? Sold to pay the rent. Where is the 
hat-rack? Sold to meet the butcher's bill. Where are 
the carpets? Sold to get bread. Where is the wardrobe? 
Sold to get rum. Where are the daughters? Working 



236 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

tlieir fingers off m trying to keep the family together. 
Worse and worse, until everything is gone. Who is that 
going up the front steps of that house? That is a creditor, 
hoping to find some chair or bed that has not been levied 
upon. Who are those two gentlemen now going up the 
front steps? The one is a constable, the other is the 
sheriff. Why do they go there? The unfortunate is 
morally dead, socially dead, financially dead. Why do 
they go there? I will tell you why the creditors, and the 
constables, and the sheriffs go there. They are, some on 
their own account, and some on account of the law, strip- 
ping the slain. 

An ex-member of Congress, one of the most eloquent 
men that ever stood in the House of Eepresentatives, said 
in his last moments: "This is the end. I am dying — 
dying on a borrowed bed, covered by a borrowed sheet, in 
a house built by public charity. Bury me under that tree 
in the middle of the field, where I shall not be crowded, 
for I have been crowded all my life. " Where were the 
jolly politicians and the dissipating comrades who had been 
with him, laughing at his jokes, applauding his eloquence, 
and plunging him into sin? They have left. Why? His 
money is gone, his reputation is gone, his wit is gone, his 
clothes are gone, everything is gone. Why should they 
stay any longer? They have completed their work. They 
have stripped the slain. 

There is another way, however, of doing that same 
work. Here is a man who, through his sin, is prostrate. 
He acknowledges that he has done wrong. Now is the 
time for you to go to that man and say: " Thousands of 



STKIPPLNG THE SLAIN". 237 

people have been as far astray as you are, and got back." 
Now is the time for you to go to that man and tell him of 
the omnipotent grace of God, that is sufficient for any 
poor soul. Now is the time to go to tell him how swear- 
ing John Bunyan, through the grace of God, afterward 
came to the celestial city. Now is the time to go to that 
man and tell him how profligate Newton came, through 
conversion, to be a world-renowned preacher of righteous- 
ness. Now is the time to tell that man that multitudes 
who have been pounded with all the flails of sin and 
dragged through all the sewers of pollution at last have 
risen to positive dominion of moral power. 

You do not tell him that, do you? No. You say to 
him: "Loan you money? No. You are down. You 
will have to go to the dogs. Lend you a shilling? I 
would not lend you five cents to keep you from the gal- 
lows. You are debauched! Get out of my sight, now! 
Down; you will have to stay down!" And thus those 
bruised and battered men are sometimes accosted by those 
who ought to lift them up. Thus the last vestige of hope 
is taken from them. Thus those who ought to go and lift 
and save them are guilty of stripping the slain. 

The point I want to make is this : sin is hard, cruel, and 
merciless. Instead of helping a man up it helps him 
down; and when, like Saul and his comrades, you lie on 
the field, it will come and steal your sword and helmet and 
shield, leaving you to the jackal and the crow. 

But the world and Satan do not do all their work with 
the outcast and abandoned. A respectable, impenitent 
man comes to die. He is flat on his back. He could not 



' TASSBSA II S3 

b >. were on fire. A st medical skill 

and _ nursing haYe been a failure. He has come to 

si hour. "What does Satan do for such a man? 

Why. he : . : bet up all the inapt, disagreeable, and harrow- 

. tilings in Ins life He says "I - re member those 

chances yon had for heayen, and missed them? B: yon 

m :r all those lapses in conduc:: Z : yon remember 

all those ■" :. - words and thoughts and 

I i.:_'t remember them, eh? I'll make yon remember 
them. ' " And then he take- ill :"_t past and empties it on 
that death-bed. as the mail-bags are emptied on the post- 
:ii::i The man k ack. He can not _t: : .-;■- from 
them. 

Then the man says to Satan: " Yon hare deceived me. 

Yon told me that all would be well Yon said there 

would be no trouble at the last. Yon told me if I di 1 3 : 

and so. yon would 1 : a and so. Now yon owner me. 

hedge me up, and submerge me in eTerything eviL" 

** Ha ! 1- ajs Satan, "I wae :i> fooling yen. Ft k 

mirth for me to see you suffer. I hare been for thirty 

- i:::;:. t: _ : where yon are. It is hard 

ioi yc . i- : ~ — it wfll I e won* for y : o after awhile. It 

me Li -- -i Z m't fiinch or shudder. 

now, I will tear 08. from you the last rag of exr : 

tion. I will rend away from yonx »ol the last hope. I 

::: :~_r 1 :__._ : the nm. It is my 

in." 

While men are in robust health, and their digestion is 

good, _.:"_ ey think thei: I 

Q] _;: :1. ... ■ ... through the last exigency. 



STRIPPING THE SLAIN. 239 

They say it is only cowardly women who are afraid at the 
last, and cry out for God. " Wait till I come to die. I 
will show you. You won't hear me pray, nor call for a 
minister, nor want a chapter read me from the Bible." 
But after the man has been three weeks in a sick-room his 
nerves are not so steady, and his worldly companions are 
not anywhere near to cheer him up, and he is i^ersuaded 
that he must quit life: his physical courage is all gone. 

He jumps at the fall of a teaspoon in a saucer. He 
shivers at the idea of going away. He says: " Wife, I 
don't think my infidelity is going to take me through. 
For God's sake don't bring up the children to do as I have 
done. If you feel like it, I wish you would read a verse or 
two out of Fannie' s Sabbath-school hymn-book or New 
Testament." But Satan breaks in, and says: " You have 
always thought religion trash and a lie; don't give up at 
the last. Besides that, you can not, in the hour you have 
to live, get off on that track. Die as you lived. With my 
great black wings I shut out that light. Die in darkness. 
I rend away from you that last vestige of hope. It is my 
business to strip the slain." 

A man who had rejected Christianity and thought it all 
trash, came to die. He was in the sweat of a great agony, 
and his wife said: "We had better have some prayer." 
' ' Mary, not a breath of that," he said. "The lightest 
word of prayer would roll back on me like rocks on a 
drowning man. I have come to the hour of test. I had a 
chance, and I forfeited it. I believed in a liar, and he has 
left me in the lurch. Mary, bring me Tom Paine, that 
book that I swore by and lived by, and pitch it in the fire, 



240 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

and let it burn and burn as I myself shall soon burn." 
And then, with the foam on his lip and his hands tossing 
wildly in the air, he cried out: " Blackness of darkness! 
Oh, my God, too late!" And the spirits of darkness 
whistled up from the depth, and wheeled around and 
around him, stripping the slain. 

Sin is a luxury now; it is exhilaration now; it is victory 
now. But after awhile it is collision; it is defeat; it is ex- 
termination; it is jackalism; it is robbing the dead; it is 
stripping the slain. Give it up to-day — give it up ! Oh, 
how you have been cheated on, my brother, from one 
thing to another! All these years you have been under an 
evil mastery that you understood not. What have your 
companions done for you? What have they clone for your 
health? Xearly ruined it by carousal. What have they 
done for your fortune? Almost scattered it by spendthrift 
behavior. What have they done for your reputation? 
Almost ruined it with good men. What have they done 
for your immortal soul? Almost insured its overthrow. 

You are hastening on toward the consummation of all 
that is sad. To-day you stop and think, but it is only for 
a moment, and then you will tramp on, and at the close of 
this service you will go out, and the question will be: 
" How did you like the sermon?" And one man will say: 
" I liked it very well," and another man will say: " 1 
didn't like it at all;" but neither of the answers will touch 
the tremendous fact that, if impenitent, you are going at 
eighteen knots an hour toward shipwreck! Yea, you are 
in a battle where you will fall; and while your surviving 
relatives will take your remaining estate, and the cemetery 



STRIPPING THE SLAIN". 241 

will take your body, the messengers of darkness will take 
your soul, and come and go about you for the next ten 
million years, stripping the slain. 

Many are crying out: " I admit I am slain, I admit 
it!" On what battle-field, my brothers? By what 
weapon? " Polluted imagination," says one man; " In- 
toxicating liquor," says another man; " My own hard 
heart," says another man. Do you realize this? Then I 
come to tell you that the omnipotent Christ is ready to 
walk across this battle-field, and revive, and resuscitate, 
and resurrect your dead soul. Let Him take your hand 
and rub away the numbness; your head, and bathe off the 
aching; your heart, and stop its wild throb. He brought 
Lazarus to life; He brought JairuV daughter to life; He 
brought the young man of Nam to life, and these are three 
proofs anyhow that he can bring you to life. 

When the Philistines came down on the field, they 
stepped between the corpses, and they rolled over the 
dead, and they took away everything that was valuable; 
and so it was with the people that followed after our army 
at Chancellorsville, and at Pittsburg Landing, and at 
Stone River, and at Atlanta, stripping the slain; but the 
Northern and Southern women — God bless them! — came 
on the field with basins, and pads, and towels, and lint, 
and cordials, and Christian encouragement; and the poor 
fellows that lay there lifted up their arms and said: " Oh, 
how good that does feel since you dressed it!" and others 
looked up and said: " Oh, how you make me think of my 
mother!" and others said: " Tell the folks at home I died 
thinking about them;" and another looked up and said: 



242 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMOKS. 

" Miss, won't you sing me a verse of ' Home, Sweet 
Home/ before I die?" And then the tattoo was sounded* 
and the hats were off, and the service was read: " I am. 
the resurrection and the life;" and in honor of the depart- 
ed the muskets were loaded, and the command given: 
" Take aim — fire!" And there was a shingle set up at the 

head of the grave, with the epitaph of " Lieutenant 

in the Fourteenth Massachusetts Regulars," or " Captain 
in the Fifteenth Regiment of South Carolina Volun- 
teers." And so to-night, across this great field of moral 
and spiritual battle, the angels of God come walking 
among the slain, and there are voices of comfort, and 
voices of hope, and voices of resurrection, and voices of 
heaven. 

Christ is ready to give life to the dead. He will make 
the deaf ear to hear, the blind eye to see, the pulseless 
heart to beat, and the damp walls of your spiritual char- 
nel-house will crash into ruin at His cry: " Come forth!" 
I verily believe there are souls in this house who are now 
dead in sin, who in half an hour will be alive forever. 
There was a thrilling dream, a glorious dream — you may 
have heard of it. Ezekiel closed his eyes, and he saw two 
mountains, and a valley between the mountains. That 
valley looked as though there had been a great battle there, 
and a whole army had been slain, and they had been un- 
buried; and the heat of the land, and the vultures coming 
there, soon the bones were exposed to the sun, and they 
looked like thousands of snow-drifts all through the valley. 
Frightful spectacle! The bleaching skeletons of a host! 

But Ezekiel still kept his eyes shut; and lo! there were 



STKIPPING THE SLAIN". 213 

four currents of wind that struck the battle-field, and 
when those four currents of wind met, the bones began to 
rattle; and the foot came to the ankle, and the hand came 
to the wrist, -and the jaws clashed together, and the spinal 
column gathered up the ganglions and the nervous fiber, 
and all the valley wriggled and writhed, and throbbed, and 
rocked, and rose up. There, a man coming to life. 
There, a hundred men. There, a thousand; and all fall- 
ing into line, waiting for the shout of their commander. 
Ten thousand bleached skeletons springing up into ten 
thousand warriors, panting for the fray. I hope that 
instead of being a dream it may be a prophecy of what we 
shall see here to-day. Let this north wall be one of the 
mountains, and the south wall be taken for another of the 
mountains, and let all the aisles and the pews be the valley 
between, for there are thousands here to-day without one 
pulsation of spiritual life. 

I look off in one direction, and they are dead. I look 
off in another direction, and they are dead. Who will 
bring them to life? Who shall rouse them up? If I 
should halloo at the top of my voice I could not wake 
them. Wait a moment! Listen! There is a rustling. 
There is a gale from heaven. It comes from the north, 
and from the south, and from the east, and from the west. 
It shuts us in. It blows upon the slain. There a soul 
begins to move in spiritual life; there, ten souls; there, a 
score of souls; there, a hundred souls. The nostrils throb- 
bing in divine respiration, the hands lifted as though to 
take hold of heaven, the tongue moving as in prayer and 
adoration. Life! immortal life corning into the slain. 



24:4: NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Ten men for God — fifty — a hundred — a regiment — an 
army for God ! Oh, that we might have such a scene here 
to-day! In Ezekiel's words, and in almost a frenzy of 
prayer, I cry: " Come from the four winds, Breath! and 
breathe upon the slain. " 

You will have to surrender your heart to-day to God. 
You can not take the responsibility of fighting against the 
Spirit in this crisis which will decide whether you are to go 
to heaven or to hell — to join the hallelujahs of the saved, 
or the lamentations of the lost. You must pray. You 
must repent. You must this day fling your sinful soul on 
the pardoning mercy of God. You must! I see your 
resolution against God giving way, your determination 
wavering. I break through the breach in the wall and 
follow up the advantage gained, hoping to rout your last 
opposition to Christ, and to make you " ground arms" at 
the feet of the Divine Conqueror. Oh, you must! You 
must! 

The moon does not ask the tides of the Atlantic Ocean 
to rise. It only stoops down with two great hands of light, 
the one at the European beach, and the other at the 
American beach, and then lifts the great laver of molten 
silver. And God, it seems to me, is now going to lift this 
audience to newness of life. Do you not feel the swellings 
of the great oceanic tides of Divine mercy? My heart is 
in anguish to have you saved. For this I pray, and 
preach, and long, glad to be called a fool for Christ's sake, 
and your salvation. 

Some one replies: " Dear me, I do wish I could have 
these matters arranged with my God. I want to be saved. 



STRIPPING THE SLAIN. 245 

God knows I want to be saved; but you stand there talk- 
ing about this matter, and you don't show me how." My 
dear brother, the work has all been done. Christ did it 
with His own torn hand, and lacerated foot, and bleeding 
side. He took your place, and died your death, if you 
will only believe it — only accept Him as your substitute. 

What an amazing pity that any man should go from 
this house unblessed, when such a large blessing is offered 
him at less cost than you would pay for a pin — " without 
money and without price." I have driven down to-day 
with the Lord's ambulance to the battle-field where your 
soul lies exposed to the darkness and the storm, and I 
want to lift you in, and drive off with you toward heaven. 
Oh, Christians, by your prayers help to lift these wounded 
souls into the ambulance ! God forbid that any should be 
left on the field, and that at last eternal sorrow, and re- 
morse, and despair should come up around their soul like 
the bandit Philistines to the field of Gilboa, stripping the 
slain. 



SOLD OUT. 



" Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed 
without money." — Isa. lii: 3. 

The Jews had gone headlong into sin, and as a punish- 
ment they had been carried captive to Babylon. They 
found that iniquity did not pay. Cyrus seized Babylon, 
and felt so sorry for these poor captive Jews that, without 
a dollar of compensation, he let them go home. So that, 
literally, my text was fulfilled: " Ye have sold yourselves 
for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money." 

There is enough Gospel in this text for fifty sermons; 
though I never heard of its being preached on. There are 
persons in this house who have, like the Jews of the text, 
sold out. You do not seem to belong either to yourselves 
or to God. The title-deeds have been passed over to " the 
world, the flesh, and the devil," but the purchaser has 
never paid up. " Ye have sold yourselves for nought/' 

When a man passes himself over to the world he expects 
to get some adequate compensation. He has heard the 
great things that the world does for a man, and he believes 
it. He wants two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
That will be horses, and houses, and a summer-resort, and 
jolly companion shijD. To get it he parts with his physical 
health by overwork. He parts with his conscience. He 

cm 



SOLD OUT. 247 

parts with much domestic enjoyment. lie parts with op- 
portunities for literary culture. He parts with his soul. 
And so he makes over his entire nature to the world. He 
does it in four installments. He pays down the first in- 
stallment, and one fourth of his nature is gone. He pays 
down the second installment, and one half of his nature is 
gone. He pays down the third installment, and three 
quarters of his nature are gone; and after many years have 
gone by he pays down the fourth installment, and, lo ! his 
entire nature is gone. Then he comes up to the world and 
says: " Good-morning. I have delivered to you the goods. 
I have passed over to you my body, my mind, and my 
soul, and I have come now to collect the two hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars." " Two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars ?" says the world. " What do you mean?" 
" Well," you say, " I come to collect the money you owe 
me, and I expect you now to fulfill your part of the con- 
tract." " But," says the world, " I have failed. 1 am 
bankrupt. I can not possibly pay that debt. I have not 
for a long while expected to pay it." " Well," you then 
say, "give me back the goods." "Oh, no," says the 
world, ' ' they are all gone. I can not give them back to 
you." And there you stand on the confines of eternity, 
your spiritual character gone, staggering under the con- 
sideration that " you have sold yourself for nought." 

I tell you the world is a liar; it does not keep its prom- 
ises. It is a cheat, and it fleeces everything it can put its 
hands on. It is a bogus world. It is a six-thousand -year- 
old swindle. Even if it pays the two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars for which you contracted, it pays them in 



248 KEW TABEKNACLE SEBMOKS. 

bonds that will not be worth anything in a little while. 
Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard 
cash and get for it worthless scrip — so the world passes 
over to you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 
that shaj)e which will not be worth a farthing to you a 
thousandth part of a second after you are dead. " Oh/' 
you say, "it will help to bury me, anyhow." Oh, my 
brother! you need not worry about that. The world will 
bury you soon enough, from sanitary considerations. 
After you have been deceased for three or four days you 
will compel the world to bury you. 

Post-mortem emoluments are of no use to you. The 
treasures of this world will not pass current in the future 
world; and if all the wealth of the Bank of England were 
put in the pocket of your shroud, and you in the midst of 
the Jordan of death were asked to pay three cents for your 
ferriage, you could not do it. There comes a moment in 
your existence beyond which all earthly values fail; and 
many a man has wakened up in such a time to find that 
he has sold out for eternity, and has nothing to show for 
it. I should as soon think of going to Chatham Street to 
buy silk pocket-handkerchiefs with no cotton in them, as 
to go to this world expecting to find any permanent happi- 
ness. It has deceived and deluded every man that has 
ever put his trust in it. 

History tells us of one who resolved that he would have 
all his senses gratified at one and the same time, and he 
expended thousands of dollars on each sense. He entered 
a room, and there were the first musicians of the land 
pleasing his ear, and there were fine pictures fascinating 



SOLD OUT. 249 

his eye, and there were costly aromatics regaling his nos- 
tril, and there were the richest meats, and wines, and 
fruits, and confections pleasing the appetite, and there 
was a soft couch of sinful indulgence on which he reclined ; 
and the man declared afterward that he would give ten 
times what he had given if he could have one week of such 
enjoyment, even though he lost his soul by it. Ah! that 
was the rub. He did lose his soul by it ! Cyrus the Con- 
queror thought for a little while that he was making a fine 
thing out of this world, and yet before he came to his 
grave he wrote out this pitiful epitaph for his monument: 
" I am Cyrus. I occupied the Persian Empire. I was 
king over Asia. Begrudge me not this monument." 
But the world in after years plowed up his sepulcher. 

The world clapped its hands and stamped its feet in 
honor of Charles Lamb; but what does he say? " I walk 
up and down, thinking I am happy, but feeling I am 
not." Call the roll, and be quick about it. Samuel 
Johnson, the learned! Happy? " No. I am afraid I 
shall some day get crazy." "William Hazlitt, the great 
essayist! Happy? " No. I have been for two hours and 
a half going up and down Paternoster Eow with a volcano 
in my breast." Smollett, the witty author! Happy? 
" No. I am sick of praise and blame, and I wish to God 
that I had such circumstances around me that I could 
throw my pen into oblivion." Buchanan, the world- 
renowned writer, exiled from his own country, appealing 
to Henry VIII. for protection! Happy? " No. Over 
mountains covered with snow, and through valleys flooded 
with rain, I come a fugitive." Moliere, the popular 



248 KEW TABERftACLE SERMONS. 

bonds that will not be worth anything in a little while. 
Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard 
cash and get for it worthless scrip — so the world passes 
over to you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 
that shape which will not be worth a farthing to you a 
thousandth part of a second after you are dead. " Oh," 
you say, "it will help to bury me, anyhow." Oh, my 
brother! you need not worry about that. The world will 
bury you soon enough, from sanitary considerations. 
After you have been deceased for three or four days you 
will compel the world to bury you. 

Post-mortem emoluments are of no use to you. The 
treasures of this world will not pass current in the future 
world; and if all the wealth of the Bank of England were 
put in the pocket of your shroud, and you in the midst of 
the Jordan of death were asked to pay three cents for your 
ferriage, you could not do it. There comes a moment in 
your existence beyond which all earthly values fail; and 
many a man has wakened up in such a time to find that 
he has sold out for eternity, and has nothing to show for 
it. I should as soon think of going to Chatham Street to 
buy silk pocket-handkerchiefs with no cotton in them, as 
to go to this world expecting to find any permanent happi- 
ness. It has deceived and deluded every man that has 
ever put his trust in it. 

History tells us of one who resolved that he would have 
all his senses gratified at one and the same time, and he 
expended thousands of dollars on each sense. He entered 
a room, and there were the first musicians of the land 
pleasing his ear, and there were fine pictures fascinating 



SOLD OUT. 240 

his eye, and there were costly aromatics regaling his nos- 
tril, and there were the richest meats, and wines, and 
fruits, and confections pleasing the appetite, and there 
was a soft couch of sinful indulgence on which he reclined; 
and the man declared afterward that he would give ten 
times what he had given if he could have one week of such 
enjoyment, even though he lost his soul by it. Ah! that 
was the rub. He did lose his soul by it! Cyrus the Con- 
queror thought for a little while that he was making a fine 
thing out of this world, and yet before he came to his 
grave he wrote out this pitiful epitaph for his monument: 
" I am Cyrus. I occupied the Persian Empire. I was 
king over Asia. Begrudge me not this monument." 
But the world in after years plowed up his sepulcher. 

The world clapped its hands and stamped its feet in 
honor of Charles Lamb; but what does he say? " I walk 
up and down, thinking I am happy, but feeling I am 
not." Call the roll, and be quick about it. Samuel 
Johnson, the learned! Happy? " No. I am afraid I 
shall some day get crazy." William Hazlitt, the great 
essayist! Happy? " No. I have been for two hours and 
a half going up and down Paternoster Row with a volcano 
in my breast." Smollett, the witty author! Happy? 
" No. I am sick of praise and blame, and I wish to God 
that I had such circumstances around me that I could 
throw my pen into oblivion." Buchanan, the world- 
renowned writer, exiled from his own country, appealing 
to Henry VIII. for protection! Hajopy? " No. Over 
mountains covered with snow, and through valleys flooded 
with rain, I come a fugitive." Moliere, the popular 



250 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

dramatic author! Happy? " No. That wretch of an 
actor just now recited four of my lines without the proper 
accent and gesture. To have the children of my brain so 
hung, drawn, and quartered, tortures me like a condemned 
spirit,' 5 

I went to see a worldling die. As I went into the hall I 
saw its floor was tessellated, and its wall was a picture-gal- 
lery. I found his death-chamber adorned with tapestry 
until it seemed as if the clouds of the setting sun had set- 
tled in the room. The man had given forty years to the 
world — his wit, his time, his genius, his talent, his soul. 
Did the world come in to stand by his death-bed, and 
clearing off the vials of bitter medicine, put down any 
compensation? Oh, no! The world does not like sick 
and dying people, and leaves them in the lurch. It ruined 
this man, and then left him. He had a magnificent 
funeral. All the ministers wore scarfs, and there were 
forty- three carriages in a row; but the departed man ap- 
preciated not the obsequies. 

I want to persuade my audience that this world is a 
poor investment; that it does not pay ninety per cent, 
of satisfaction, nor eighty per cent., nor twenty per 
cent, nor two per cent., nor one; that it gives no 
solace when a dead babe lies on your lap; that it gives no 
peace when conscience rings its alarm; that it gives no ex- 
planation in the day of dire trouble; and at the time of 
your decease it takes hold of the pillow-case, and shakes 
out the feathers, and then jolts down in the place thereof 
sighs, and groans, and execrations, and then makes you 
put your head on it. Oh, ye who have tried" this world, is 



SOLD OUT. 251 

it a satisfactory portion? Would you advise your friends 
to make the investment? No. " Ye have sold yourselves 
for nought. " Your conscience went. Your hope went. 
Your Bible went. Your heaven went. Your God went. 
When a sheriff under a writ from the courts sells a man 
out, the officer generally leaves a few chairs and a bed, 
and a few cups and knives; but in this awful vendue in 
which you have been engaged the auctioneer's mallet has 
come down upon body, mind, and soul: Going! Gone! 
" Ye have sold yourselves for nought." 

How could you do so? Did you think that your soul 
was a mere trinket which for a few pennies you could buy 
in a toy shop? Did you think that your soul, if once lost, 
might be found again if you went out with torches and 
lanterns? Did you think that your soul was short-lived, 
and that, panting, it would soon lie down for extinction? 
Or had you no idea what your soul was worth? Did you 
ever put your forefingers on its eternal pulses? Have you 
never felt the quiver of its peerless wing? Have you not 
known that, after leaving the body, the first step of your 
soul reaches to the stars, and the next step to the furthest 
outposts of God's universe, and that it will not die until 
the day when the everlasting Jehovah expires? Oh, my 
brother, what possessed you that you should part with your 
soul so cheap? " Ye have sold yourselves for nought." 

But I have some good news to tell you. I want to en- 
gage in a litigation for the recovery of that soul of yours. 
I want to show that you have been cheated out of it. I 
want to prove, as I will, that you were crazy on that sub- 
ject, and that the world, under such circumstances, has no 



252 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMONS. 

right to take the title-deed from you; and if you will join 
me I shall get a decree from the High Chancery Court of 
Heaven reinstating you into the possession of your soul. 
" Oh," you say, " I am afraid of lawsuits; they are so ex- 
pensive, and I can not j)ay the cost. " Then have you for- 
gotten the last half of my text? " Ye have sold yourselves 
for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money." 

Money is good for a great many things, but it can not 
do anything in this matter of the soul. You can not buy 
your way through. Dollars and pounds sterling mean 
nothing at the gate of mercy. If you could buy your sal- 
vation, heaven would be a great speculation, an extension 
of Wall Street. Bad men would go up and buy out the 
place, and leave us to shift for ourselves. But as money is 
not a lawful tender, what is? I will answer: Blood! 
Whose? Are we to go through the slaughter? Oh, no; it 
wants richer blood than ours. It wants a king's blood. 
It must be poured from royal arteries. It must be a sin- 
less torrent. But where is the king? I see a great many 
thrones and a great many occupants, yet none seem to be 
coming down to the rescue. But after awhile the clock of 
night in Bethlehem strikes twelve, and the silver pendu- 
lum of a star swings across the sky, and I see the King of 
Heaven rising up, and He descends, and steps down from 
star to star, and from cloud to cloud, lower and lower, 
until He touches the sheep-covered hills, and then on to 
another hill, this last skull-covered, and there, at the sharp 
stroke of persecution, a rill incarnadine trickles down, and 
we who could not be redeemed by money ate redeemed by 
precious and imperial blood. 



SOLD OUT. 253 

We have in this clay professed Christians who are so 
rarefied and etherealized that they do not want a religion 
of blood. What do you want? You seem to want a re- 
ligion of brains. The Bible says: " In the blood is the 
life." No atonement without blood. Ought not the 
apostle to know? What did he say? " Ye are redeemed 
not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but by 
the precious blood of Christ." You put your lancet into 
the arm of our holy religion and withdraw the blood, and 
you leave it a mere corpse, fit only for the grave. Why 
did God command the priests of old to strike the knife 
into the kid, and the goat, and the pigeon, and the bull- 
ock, and the lamb ? It was so that when the blood rushed 
out from these animals on the floor of the ancient taber- 
nacle the people should be compelled to think of the com- 
ing carnage of the Son of God. No blood, no atonement. 

I think that God intended to impress us with the vivid- 
ness of that color. The green of the grass, the blue of the 
sky, would not have startled and aroused us like this deep 
crimson. It is as if God had said: "Now, sinner, wake 
up and see what the Saviour endured for you. This is not 
water. This is not wine. It is blood. It is the blood of 
my own Son. It is the blood of the Immaculate. It is 
the blood of God." Without the shedding of blood is no 
remission. There has been many a man who in courts of 
law has pleaded " not guilty," who nevertheless has been 
condemned because there was blood found on his hands, or 
blood found in his room; and what shall we do in the last 
day if it be found that we have recrucified the Lord of 
Glory and have never repented of it? You must believe in 



25 ± XEW TABEEXACEE SEBMOXS. 

the blood or die. Xo escape. Unless you let the sacrifice 
of Jesus go in your stead you yourself must suffer. It is 
either Christ's blood or your blood. 

" Oh/' says some one, "the thought of blood sickens 
me.' v Good. God intended it to sicken you with your 
sin. Do not act as though you had nothing to do with 
that Calvarian massacre. Tou had. Your sins were the 
implements of tort ore. Those inrpleinents were not made 
of steel, and iron, and wood, so much as out of your sins. 
Guilty of this homicide, and this regicide, and this deicide, 
confess your guilt to-day. Ten thousand roices of heaven 
bring in the verdict against you of guilty, guilty. Prejmre 
to die, or believe in that blood. Stretch yourself out for 
the sacrifice, or accept the Saviour's sacrifice. Do not 
fling away your one chance. 

It seems to me as if all heaven were trying to bid in 
your soul. The first bid it makes is the tears of Christ at 
the tomb of Lazarus; but that is not a high enough price. 
The next bid heaven makes is the sweat of Gethsemane; 
but it is too cheap a price. The next bid heaven makes 
seems to be the whipped back of Pilate's hall: but it is not 
a high enough price. Can it be possible that heaven can 
not buy you in? Heaven tries once more. It says: "I 
bid this time for that man's soul the tortures of Christ's 
martyrdom, the blood on His temple, the blood on His 
cheek, the blood on His chin, the blood on His hand, the 
blood on His side, the blood on His knee, the blood on His 
foot — the blood in drops, the blood in nils, the blood in 
pools coagulated beneath the cross: the blood that wet the 
tips of the soldiers' spears, the blood that plashed warm in 



SOLD OUT. 255 

the faces of His enemies." Glory to God, that bid wins 
it! The highest price that was ever paid for anything was 
paid for your soul. Nothing could buy it but blood ! The 
estranged property is bought back. Take it. " You have 
sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed with- 
out money." atoning blood, cleansing blood, life- 
giving blood, sanctifying blood, glorifying blood of Jesus! 
Why not burst into tears at the thought that for thee He 
shed it — for thee the hard-hearted, for thee the lost? 

" No," says some one; " I will have nothing to do with 
it except that, like the Jews, I put both my hands into 
that carnage and scoop up both palms full, and throw it 
on my head and cry : ' His blood be on us and on our chil- 
dren!'' " Can you do such a shocking thing as that? 
Just rub your handkerchief across your brow and look at 
it. It is the blood of the Son of God whom you have 
despised and driven back all these years. Oh, do not do 
that any longer ! Come out frankly and boldly and hon- 
estly, and tell Christ you are sorry. You can not afford 
to so roughly treat Him upon whom everything depends. 

I do not know how you will get away from this subject. 
You see that you are sold out, and that Christ wants to 
buy you back. There are three persons who come after 
you to-night: God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost. They unite their three omnipotences in one 
movement for your salvation. You will not take up arms 
against the Triune God, will you? Is there enough mus- 
cle in your arm for such a combat? By the highest throne 
in heaven, and by the deepest chasm in hell, I beg you 
look out. Unless you allow Christ to carry away your 



*-?5G NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

sins, they will carry you away. Unless you allow Christ 
to lift you up, they will drag you down. There is only 
one hope for you, and that is the blood. Christ, the sin- 
offering, bearing your transgressions. Christ, the surety, 
paying your debts. Christ, the divine Cyrus, loosening 
your Babylonish eajDtivity. 

Would you not like to be free? Here is the price of 
your liberation — not money, but blood. I tremble from 
head to foot, not because I fear your presence, for I am 
used to that, but because I fear that you will miss your 
chance for immortal rescue, and die. This is the alterna- 
tive divinely put: " He that belie veth on the Son shall 
have everlasting life: and he that believeth not on the Son 
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abide th on him." 
In the last day, if you now reject Christ, every drop of that 
sacrificial blood, instead of pleading for your release as it 
would have pleaded if you had repented, will -plead against 
you. It will seem to say: " They refused the ransom; 
they chose to die; let them die: they must die. Down 
with them to the weeping and the wailing. Depart! go 
away from me. You would not have me, now I will not 
have you. Sold out for eternity. " 

Lord God of the judgment day! avert that calamity! 
Let us see the quick flash of the cimeter that slays the sin 
but saves the sinner. Strike, omnipotent God, for the 
soul's deliverance! Beat, eternal sea! with all thy 
waves against the barren beach of that rocky soul, and 
make it tremble. Oh ! the oppressiveness of the hour, the 
minute, the second, on which the soul's destiny quivers, 
and this is that hour, that minute, that second! 



SOLD OUT. 257 

I wonder what proportion of this audience will be saved? 
What proportion will be lost? When the "Schiller" 
went down, out of three hundred and eighty people only 
forty were saved. When the " Ville du Havre" went 
down, out of three hundred and forty about fifty were 
saved. Out of this audience to-day, how many will get to 
the shore of heaven? It is no idle question for me to ask, 
for many of you I shall never see again until the day when 
the books are open. 

Some years ago there came down a fierce storm on the 
sea-coast, and a vessel got in the breakers and was going 
to pieces. They threw up some signal of distress, and the 
people on the shore saw them. They put out in a life- 
boat. They came _on, and they saw the poor sailors, 
almost exhausted, clinging to a raft; and so afraid were 
the boatmen that the men would give up before they got 
to them, they gave them three rounds of cheers, and cried : 
"Hold on, there! Hold on! We'll save you!" After 
awhile the boat came up. One man was saved by having 
the boat-hook put in the collar of his coat; and some in 
one way, and some in another; but they all got into the 
boat. "Now," says the captain, "for the shore. Pull 
away now, pull!" The people on the land were afraid the 
life-boat had gone down. They said: " How long the boat 
stays. W^hy, it must have been swamped, and they have 
all perished together." 

And there were men and women on the pier-heads and 

on the beach wringing their hands; and while they waited 

and watched, they saw something looming up through the 

mist, and it turned out to be the life-boat. As soon as it 
9 



258 NEW TAEEKNACLE SERMONS. 

came within speaking distance the people on the shore 
cried out: " Did you save any of them? Did you save 
any of thein?" And as the boat swept through the boil- 
ing surf and came to the pier-head, the captain waved his 
hand over the exhausted sailors that lay flat on the bottom 
of the boat, and cried: " All saved! Thank God! All 
saved!" So may it be to-day. The waves of your sin run 
high, the storm is on you, the danger is appalling. Oh! 
shipwrecked soul, I have come for you. I cheer you with 
this Gospel hope. God grant that within the next ten 
minutes we may row with you into the harbor of God's 
mercy. And when these Christian men gather around to 
see the result of this service, and the glorified gathering on 
the pier-heads of heaven to watch and to listen, may we be 
able to report all saved! Young and old, good and bad! 
All saved! Saved from sin, and death, and hell. Saved 
for time. Saved for eternity. " And so it came to pass 
that they all escaped safe to land." 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 



" Come ye yourselves apart unto a desert place and rest awhile." 
— MAEKvi: 31. 

Heke Christ advises His apostles to take a vacation. 
They have been living an excited as well as a useful life, 
and He advises that they get out into the country. When, 
six weeks ago, standing in this place, I advocated, with all 
the energy I could command, the Saturday afternoon 
holiday, 1 did not think the people would so soon get that 
release. By divine fiat it has come, and I rejoice that 
more people will have opportunity of recreation this sum- 
mer than in any previous summer. Others will have whole 
weeks and months of rest. The railway trains are being 
laden with passengers and baggage on their way to the 
mountains and the lakes and the sea-shore. Multitudes 
of our citizens are packing their trunks for a restorative 
absence. 

The city heats are pursuing the people with torch and 
fear of sunstroke. The long silent halls of sumptuous 
hotels are all abuzz with excited arrivals. The crystalline 
surface of Winnipiseogee is shattered with the stroke 
of steamer, laden with excursionists. The antlers of 
Adirondack deer rattle under the shot of city sportsmen. 
The trout make fatal snaps at the hook of adroit sports- 

(§59) 



^00 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

men and toss their spotted brilliance into the game-basket. 
Already the baton of the orchestral leader taps the music- 
stand on the hotel green, and American life puts on festal 
array, and the rumbling of the tenpin alley, and the crack 
of the ivory balls on the green-baized billiard tables, and 
the jolting of the bar-room goblets, and the explosive un- 
corking of champagne bottles, and the whirl and the rustle 
of the ball-room dance, and the clattering hoofs of the 
race-courses, attest that the season for the great American 
watering-places is fairly inaugurated. Music — flute and 
drum and cornet-a-piston and clapping cymbals — will 
wake the echoes of the mountains. 

Glad I am that fagged-out American life for the most 
part will have an opportunity to rest, and that nerves 
racked and destroyed will find a Bethesda. I believe in 
watering-j)laces. Let not the commercial firm begrudge the 
clerk, or the employer the journeyman, or the patient the 
physician, or the church its pastor, a season of inoccupa- 
tion. Luther used to sport with his children; Edmund 
Burke used to caress his favorite horse; Thomas Chalmers, 
in the dark hours of the church's disruption, played kite 
for recreation — as I was told by his own daughter — and the 
busy Christ said to the busy apostles: " Come ye apart 
awhile into the desert and rest yourselves. " And I have 
observed that they who do not know how to rest do not 
know how to work. 

But I have to declare this truth to-day, that some of our 
fashionable watering-places are the temporal and eternal 
destruction of " a multitude that no man can number," 
and amid the congratulations of this season and the pros- 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 3(31 

pect of the departure of many of you for the country I 
must utter a note of warning — plain, earnest, and unmis- 
takable. 

I. The first temptation that is apt to hover in this direc- 
tion is to leave your piety all at home. You will send the 
dog and cat and canary bird to be well cared for some- 
where else; but the temptation will be to leave your 
religion in the room with the blinds down and the door 
bolted, and then you will come back in the autumn to find 
that it is starved and suffocated, lying stretched ou the rug 
stark dead. There is no surplus of piety at the watering- 
places. I never knew any one to grow very rapidly in 
grace at the Catskill Mountain House, or Sharon Springs, 
or the Falls of Montmorency. It is generally the case that 
the Sabbath is more of a carousal than any other day, and 
there are Sunday walks and Sunday rides and Sunday ex- 
cursions. 

Elders and deacons and ministers of religion who are 
entirely consistent at home, sometimes when the Sabbath 
dawns on them at Niagara Falls or the White Mountains 
take the day to themselves. If they go to the church, it is 
apt to be a sacred parade, and the discourse, instead of be- 
ing a plain talk about the soul, is apt to be what is called 
a crack sermon — ^that is, some discourse picked out of the 
effusions of the year as the one most adapted to excite ad- 
miration; and in those churches, from the way the ladies 
hold their fans, you know that they are not so much im- 
pressed with the heat as with the picturesqueness of half- 
disclosed features. Four puny souls stand in the organ- 
loft and squall a tune that nobody knows, and worshipers, 



KKW TAEUKXACLE SERMONS. 

with two thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on the right 
hand, drop a cent into the poor-box. and then the bene- 
n is pronounced and the farce is ended. 

The toughest thing I ever tried to do was : be good at 
a watering-place. The air is bewitched with " the world, 
the flesh, and the devil.'' There are Christians who in 
three or fonr weeks in such a place have had such terrible 
rente made in their Christian robe that they had to keep 
darning it until Christmas to get it mended ! The health 
of a great many people makes an annual visit to some 
mineral spring an absolute necessity; but, my dear peo- 
ple, take your Bible along with you, and take an hour for 
secret prayer every day, though you be surrounded by 
guffaw and saturnalia. Keep holy the Sabbath, though 
they denounce you as a bigoted Puritan. Stand off from 
the ~r institutions which propose to imitate on this side the 
water the iniquities of Baden-Baden. Let your moral and 
your immortal health keep pace with your physical recu- 
peration, and remember that all the waters of Hathorne 
and sulphur and chalybeate springs can not do you so 
much good as the mineral, healing, perennial flood that 
breaks forth from the " Bock of Ages.'' This may be 
your last summer. H so, make it a fit vestibule of 
heav c ::. 

II. Another temptation around nearly all our watering- 
58 is the horse-racing business. T\~e all admire the 
horse. There needs to be a redistribution of coronets 
among the brute creation. Tor ages the Hon has been 
called the king of beasts. I knock off its coronet and put 
the crown upon the horse, in every way nobler, whether in 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 203 

shape or spirit or sagacity or intelligence or affection or 
usefulness. He is semi-human, and knows how to reason 
on a small scale. The centaur of olden times, part horse 
and part man, seems to be a suggestion of the fact that the 
horse is something more than a beast. 

Job sets forth his strength, his beauty, his majesty, the 
panting of his nostril, the pawing of his hoof, and his en- 
thusiasm for the battle. What Rosa Bonheur did for the 
cattle, and what Landseer did for the dog, Job, with 
mightier pencil, does for the horse. Eighty-eight times 
does the Bible speak of him. He comes into every kingly 
procession and into every great occasion and into every 
triumph. It is very evident that Job and David and 
Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and John were fond of 
the horse. He came into much of their imagery. A red 
horse — that meant war; a black horse — that meant famine; 
a pale horse — that meant death; a white horse — that 
meant victory. 

As the Bible makes a favorite of the horse, the patriarch 
and the prophet and the evangelist and the apostle, strok- 
ing his sleek hide, and patting his rounded neck, and ten- 
derly lifting his exquisitely formed hoof, and listening with 
a thrill to the champ of his bit, so all great natures in all 
ages have spoken of him in encomiastic terms. Virgil in 
his Georgics almost seems to plagiarize from the descrip- 
tion of Job. The Duke of Wellington would not allow 
any one irreverently to touch his old war-horse, Copenha- 
gen, on whom he had ridden fifteen hours without dis- 
mounting at Waterloo; and when old Copenhagen died, 
his master ordered a military salute fired over his grave. 



'■304 NEW TABERNACLE BEBJfONS. 

John Howard showed that he did not exhaust all his sym- 
pathies in pitying the human race, for when sick he writes 
home: " Has my old chaise-horse become sick or spoiled?" 
But we do not think that the speed of the horse should 

be cultured at the expense of human degradation. Horse- 
5 } in olden times, were under the ban of Christian peo- 
ple, and in our day the same institution has come up under 
fictitious names, and it is called a ■'*' Summer Meeting," 
almost suggestive of 2>jsitive religious exercises. And it is 
called an *' '' Agricultural Fair,*' suggestive of everything 
that is improving in the art of farming. But under these 
deceptive titles are the same cheating and the same bet- 
ting, the same drunkenness and the same vagabondage and 
the same abominations that were to be found under the old 
horse-racing system. 

I never knew a man yet who could give himself to the 
of the turf for a long reach of rime, and not be 
battered in morals. They hook up their spanking team, 
and put on their sporting-cap, and light their cigar, and 
take the reins, and dash down the road to j>erdition. The 
great day at Saratoga, and Long Branch, and Cape May, 
and nearly all the other watering-places, is the day of the 
races. The hotels are thronged, nearly every kind of 
equipage is taken up at an almost fabulous price, and there 
are many respectable peojDle mingling with jockeys, and 
gamblers, and hbertine^, and foul-mouthed men and flashy 
women. The bar-tender stirs up the brandy-smash. The 
bets run high. The greenhorns, supposing all is fair, put 
in their money soon enough to lose it. Three weeks before 
the race takes place the struggle is decided, and the men 



SUMMER TEMPTATION'S. 265 

in the secret know on which steed to bet their money. 
The two men on the horses riding around long before 
arranged who shall beat. 

Leaning from the stand or from the carriage are men 
and women so absorbed in the struggle of bone and muscle 
and mettle that they make a grand harvest for the pick- 
pockets, who carry off the pocket-books and portemonnaies. 
Men looking on see only two horses with two riders flying 
around the ring; but there is many a man on that stand 
whose honor and domestic happiness and fortune — white 
mane, white foot, white flank — are in the ring, racing with 
inebriety, and with fraud, and with profanity, and with 
ruin — black neck, black foot, black flank. Neck and neck 
they go in that moral Epsom. 

Ah, my friends, have nothing to do with horse-racing 
dissipations this summer. Long ago the English govern- 
ment got through looking to the turf for the dragoon and 
light-cavalry horse. They found the turf depreciates the 
stock, and it is yet worse for men. Thomas Hughes, the 
member of parliament and the author, known all the 
world over, hearing that a new turf enterprise was being- 
started in this country, wrote a letter, in which he said : 
" Heaven help you, then; for of all the cankers of our old 
civilization there is nothing in this country approaching in 
unblushing meanness, in rascality holding its head high, 
to this belauded institution of the British turf/" Another 
famous sportsman writes: " How many fine domains have 
been shared among these hosts of rapacious sharks during 
the last two hundred years; and unless the system be 
altered, how many more are doomed to fall into the same 



266 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

gulf!" The Duke of Hamilton, through his horse-racing 
proclivities, in three years got through his entire fortune 
of £70,000, and I will say that some of you are being un- 
dermined by it. With the bull-fights of Spain and the bear- 
baitings of the pit may the Lord God annihilate the infa- 
mous and accursed horse-racing of England and America. 

III. I go further, and sjoeak of another temptation that 
hovers over the watering-places; and this is the temptation 
to sacrifice physical strength. The modern Bethesda was 
intended to recuperate the physical health; and yet how 
many come from the watering-places, their health abso- 
lutely destroyed! 'New York and Brooklyn idiots boasting 
of having imbibed twenty glasses of Congress water before 
breakfast. Families accustomed to going to bed at ten 
o' clock at night gossiping until one or two o' clock in the 
morning. Dyspeptics, usually very cautious about their 
health, mingling ice-creams, and lemons, and lobster- 
salads, and cocoa-nuts, until the gastric juices lift uj* all 
their voices of lamentation and protest. Delicate women 
and brainless young men chassezing themselves into verti- 
go and catalepsy. Thousands of men and women coming 
back from our watering-places in the autumn with the 
foundations laid for ailments that will last them all their 
life long. You know as well as I do that this is the sim- 
ple truth. 

In the summer you say to your good health : "Good- 
bye, I am going to have a good time for a little while. I 
will be very glad to see you again in the autumn. " Then 
in the autumn, when you are hard at work in your office, 
or store, or shop, or counting-room, Good Health will 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 267 

come and say: "Good-bye, I am going. " You say: 
" Where are you going?" " Oh," says Good Health, " I 
am going to take a vacation!' 5 It is a poor rule that will 
not work both ways, and your good health will leave you 
choleric and splenetic and exhausted. You coquetted 
with your good health in the summer-time, and your good 
health is coquetting with you in the winter-time. A frag- 
ment of Paul's charge to the jailer would be an appropri- 
ate inscription for the hotel-register in every watering- 
place: " Do thyself no harm." 

IV. Another temptation hovering around the watering- 
place is to the formation of hasty and life-long alliances. 
The watering-places are responsible for more of the domes- 
tic infelicities of this country than all the other things 
combined. Society is so artificial there that no sure judg- 
ment of character can be formed. Those who form com- 
panionships amid such circumstances go into a lottery 
where there are twenty blanks to one prize. In the severe 
tug of life you want more than glitter and splash. Life is 
not a ball-room where the music decides the step, and bow 
and prance and graceful swing of long trail can make up 
for strong common sense. You might as well go among 
the gayly painted yachts of a summer regatta to find war 
vessels as to go among the light spray of the summer 
watering-place to find character that can stand the test of 
the great struggle of human life. Ah, in the battle of life 
you want a stronger weapon than a lace fan or a croquet 
mallet! The load of life is so heavy that in order to draw 
it, you want a team stronger than one made up of a mas- 
culine grasshopper and a feminine butterfly. 



26S NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

If there is any man in the community that excites my 
contempt, and that ought to excite the contempt of every 
man and woman, it is the soft-handed, soft-headed fop, 
who, perfumed until the air is actually sick, spends his 
summer in taking killing attitudes, and waving senti- 
mental adieus, and talking infinitesimal nothings, and find- 
ing his heaven in the set of a lavender kid-glove. Boots 
as tight as an Inquisition, two hours of consummate skill 
exhibited in the tie of a flaming cravat, his conversation 
made up of " Air's " and " OhV and " He-hee's." It 
would take five hundred of them stewed down to make a 
teaspoonful of calves-foot jelly. There is only one coun- 
terpart to such a man as that, and that is the frothy yoimg 
woman at the watering-place, her conversation made up of 
French moonshine; what she has on her head only equaled 
by what she has on her back; useless ever since she was 
born, and to be useless until she is dead: and what they 
will do with her in the next world I do not know, except 
to set her upon the banks of the River Life for eternity to 
look sweet! God intends us to admire music and fair faces 
and graceful step, but amid the heartlessness and the infla- 
tion and the fantastic influences of our modern watering- 
places, beware how you make life-long covenants! 

V. Another temptation that will hover over the water- 
ing-place is that of baneful literature. Almost every one 
starting off for the summer takes some reading matter. 
It is a book out of the library or off the bookstand, or 
bought of the boy hawking books through the cars. I 
really believe there is more pestiferous trash read among 
the intelligent classes in July and August than in all the 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 269 

other ten months of the year. Men and women who at 
home would not be satisfied with a book that was not 
really sensible, I found sitting on hotel-piazzas or under 
the trees reading books the index of which would make 
them blush if they knew that you knew what the book 
was. 

"Oh/* they say, "you must have intellectual recrea- 
tion!" Yes. There is no need that you take along into a 
watering-place " Hamilton's Metaphysics " or some thun- 
derous discourse on the eternal decrees, or " Faraday's 
Philosophy." There are many easy books that are good. 
You might as well say: " I propose now to give a little 
rest to my digestive organs; and, instead of eating heavy 
meat and vegetables, I will for a little while take lighter 
food — a little strychnine and a few grains of ratsbane." 
Literary poison in August is as bad as literary poison in 
December. Mark that. Do not let the frogs and the lice 
of a corrupt printing-press jump and crawl into your Sara- 
toga trunk or White Mountain valise. 

Would it not be an awful thing for you to be struck with 
lightning some day when you had in your hand one of 
these paper-covered romances — the hero a Parisian roue, 
the heroine an unprincipled flirt — chapters in the book 
that you would not read to your children at the rate of 
1100 a line? Throw out all that stuff from your summer 
baggage. Are there not good books that are easy to read 
— books of entertaining travel, books of congenial history, 
books of pure fun, books of poetry ringing with merry 
canto, books of fine engravings, books that will rest the 
mind as well as purify the heart and elevate the whole 



HEW IABESJTAGLE BEBMl 

life? My hearers, there will not be an hour between this 
and the day of your death when you can afford to read a 
book lacking in moral principle. 

VI. Another temptation hovering all around our water- 
ing-places is the intoxicating beverage. I am told that i: is 
becoming more and more fashionable for woman to drink. 
I care not how well a woman may dress, if she has taken 
enough of wine to flush her cheek and put glass!] less on 
her eyes, she is intoxicated. She may be handed into a 
) carriage, and have diamonds enough to confound 
the Tiffanys — she is intoxicated. She may be a graduate 
of Packer Institute, and the daughter of some man hi dan- 
ger of being nominated for the Presidency — she is drunk. 
You may have a larger vocabulary than I have, and you 
may say in regard to her that she is " convivial,'' or she 
is " merry,''" or she is " festive,'"' or she is " exhilarated, " 
but you can not with all your garlands of verbiage cover up 
the plain fact that it is an old-fashioned case of drunk. 

Xow, the watering-places are full of temptations to men 
and women to tipple. At the close of the tenpin or bill- 
iard-game they tipple. At the close of the cotillon they 
tipple. Seated on the piazza cooling themselves off they 
tipple. The tinged glasses come around with bright 
straws, and they tipple. First they take '"'light wines/ J 
as they call them; but " light wines '"'* are heavy enough to 
debase the ajopetite. There is not a very long road be- 
tween champagne at $5 a bottle and whiskey at five cents 
a glass. 

Satan has three or four grades down which he takes men 
to destruction. One man he takes up, and through one 



SUMMER TEMPTATIONS. 271 

spree pitches him into eternal darkness. That is a rare 
case. Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man who will 
be such a fool as that. 

When a man goes down to destruction Satan brings him 
co a plane. It is almost a level. The depression is so 
slight that you can hardly see it. The man does not actu- 
ally know that he is on the down grade, and it tips only a 
little toward darkness — just a little. And the first mile it 
is claret, and the second mile it is sherry, and the third 
mile it is punch, and the fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth 
mile it is porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and then it 
gets steeper and steeper and steeper, and the man gets fright- 
ened and says, "Oh, let me get off!" "ISTo," says the 
conductor, " this is an express train, and it does not stop 
until it gets to the Grand Central Depot at Smashupton." 
Ah, " look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it 
giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. 
At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an 
adder. " And if any young man in my congregation 
should get astray this summer in this direction it will not 
be because I have not given him fair warning. 

My friends, whether you tarry at home — which will be 
quite as safe and perhaps quite as comfortable — or go into 
the country, arm yourself against temptation. The grace 
of God is the only safe shelter, whether in town or coun- 
try. There are watering-places accessible to all of us. You 
can not open a book of the Bible without finding out 
some such watering-place. Fountains open for sin and 
un cleanliness; wells of salvation; streams from Lebanon; 
a flood struck out of the rock by Moses; fountains in the 



872 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

wilderness discovered by Hagar; water to drink and water 
to bathe in ; the river of God, which is full of water; water 
of which if a man drink he shall never thirst; wells of 
water in the Valley' of Baca; living fountains of water; a 
pure river of water as clear as crystal from under the 
throne of God. 

These are watering-places accessible to all of ns. We do 
not have a laborious packing up before we start — only the 
throwing away of our transgressions. No expensive hotel 
bills to pay; it is " without money and without price." 
No long and dirty travel before we get there; it is only 
one step away. California in five minutes. I walked 
around and saw ten fountains, all bubbling up, and they 
were all different. And in five minutes I can get through 
this Bible parterre and find you fifty bright, sparkling 
fountains bubbling wp into eternal life. 

A chemist will go to one of these summer Avatering- 
places and take the water and analyze it and tell you that 
it contains so much of iron, and so much of soda, and so 
much of lime, and so much of magnesia. I come to this 
Gospel well, this living fountain and analyze the water, 
and I find that its ingredients are peace, pardon, forgive- 
ness, hope, comfort, life, heaven. ' l Ho, every one that 
thirsteth, come ye " to this watering-place! 

Crowd around this Bethesda this morning! Oh, you 
sick, you lame, you troubled, you dying — crowd around 
this Bethesda! Step in it! Oh, step in it! The angel of 
the covenant this morning stirs the water. Why do you 
not step in it? Some of you are too weak to take a step 
in that direction. Then we take you up in the arms of 



SUMMER TE3IPTATI0NS. 273 

our closing prayer and plunge you clean under the wave, 
hoping that the cure may be as sudden and as radical as 
with Captain Naaman, who, blotched and carbuncled, 
stepped into the Jordan, and after the seventh dive came 
up, his skin roseate-complexioned as the flesh of a little 
child. 



THE BANISHED QUEEN. 



" Also Vashti the queeu made a feast for the women in the royal 
house which belonged to King Ahasuerus. On the seventh day 
when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded 
Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and 
Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of 
Ahasuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with 
the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty: 
for she was fair to look on. But the Queen Vashti refused to come 
at the king's commandment by his chamberlains; therefore was 
the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him." — Esther 
i: 9-12. 

We stand amid the palaces of Shushan. The jnnnacles 
are aflame with the morning light. The columns rise fes- 
tooned and wreathed, the wealth of empires flashing from 
the grooves; the ceilings adorned with images of bird and 
beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are 
hung w r ith shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the 
whole round of splendors is exhausted. Each arch is a 
mighty leaf of architectural achievement. Golden stars 
sinning down on glowing arabesque. Hangings of em- 
broidered work in which mingle the blueness of the sky, 
the greenness of the grass, and the whiteness of the sea- 
foam. Tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding together 
the pillars of marble. Pavilions reaching out in every 

(274) 



THE BANISHED QUEEN". 275 

direction. These for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, 
in which weary limbs sink until all fatigue is submerged. 
Those for carousal, where kings drink down a kingdom at 
one swallow. 

Amazing spectacle! 

Light of silver dripping down over stairs of ivory on 
shields of gold. Floors of stained marble, sunset red and 
night black, and inlaid with gleaming pearl. 

In connection with this palace there is a garden, where 
the mighty men of foreign lands are seated at a banquet. 
Under the spread of oak and linden and acacia the tables 
are arranged. The breath of honeysuckle and frankin- 
cense fills the air. Fountains leap up into the light, the 
spray struck through with rainbows falling in crystalline 
baptism upon flowering shrubs — then rolling down through 
channels of marble, and widening out here and there into 
pools swirling with the finny tribes of foreign aquariums, 
bordered with scarlet anemones, hypericums, and many- 
colored ranunculi. 

Meats of rarest bird and beast smoking up amid wreaths 
of aromatics. The vases filled with apricots and almonds. 
The baskets piled up with apricots and figs and oranges 
and pomegranates. Melons tastefully twined with leaves 
of acacia. The bright waters of Eulseus filling the urns 
and dropping outside the rim in flashing beads amid the 
traceries. Wine from the royal vats of Ispahan and 
Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and lily-shaped cups of 
silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold. The music 
rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder trans- 
port, and the wine has flushed the cheek and touched the 



276 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

brain, and louder than all other voices are the hiccough of 
the inebriates, the gabble of fools, and the song of the 
drunkards. 

In another part of the palace, Queen Vashti is entertain- 
ing the princesses of Persia at a banquet. Drunken 
Ahasuerus says to his servants, " You go out and fetch 
Vashti from that banquet with the women, and bring her 
to this banquet with the men, and let me display her 
beauty." The servants immediately start to obey the 
king's command; but there was a rule in Oriental society 
that no woman might appear in public without having her 
face veiled. Yet here was a mandate that no one dare dis- 
pute, demanding that Vashti come in unveiled before the 
multitude. However, there was in Vashti' s soul a princi- 
ple more regal than Ahasuerus, more brilliant than the 
gold of Shushan, of more wealth than the realm of Persia, 
which commanded her to disobey this order of the king; 
and so all the righteousness and holiness and modesty of 
her nature rise up into one sublime refusal. She says, 
"I will not go into the banquet unveiled." Ahasuerus 
was infuriate; and Vashti, robbed of her position and her 
estate, is driven forth in poverty and ruin to suffer the 
scorn of a nation, and yet to receive the applause of after 
generations, who shall rise up to admire this martyr to 
kingly insolence. Well, the last vestige of that feast is 
gone; the last garland has faded; the last arch has fallen; 
the last tankard has been destroyed; and Shushan is a 
ruin; but as long as the world stands there will be multi- 
tudes of men and women, familiar with the Bible, who 
will come into this picture-gallery of God and admire the 



THE BANISHED QUEEN. 27? 

divine portrait of Vasliti the queen, Vashti the veiled, 
Vashti the sacrifice, Vashti the silent. 

I. In the first place, I want you to look upon Vashti 
the queen. A blue ribbon, rayed with white, drawn 
around her forehead, indicated her queenly position. It 
was no small honor to be queen in such a realm as that. 
Hark to the rustle of her robes! See the blaze of her 
jewels! And yet, my friends, it is not necessary to have 
place and regal robe in order to be queenly. AYhen I see a 
woman with stout faith in God, putting her foot upon all 
meanness and selfishness and godless display, going right 
forward to serve Christ and the race by a grand and a 
glorious service, I say: " That woman is a queen/'' and 
the ranks of heaven look over the battlements upon the 
coronation; and whether she comes up from the shanty on 
the commons or the mansion of the fashionable square, I 
greet her with the shout, " All hail, Queen Vashti!" 

What glory was there on the brow of Mary of Scotland, 
or Elizabeth of England, or Margaret of France, or Cath- 
erine of Russia, compared with the worth of some of our 
Christian mothers, many of them gone into glory? — or of 
that woman mentioned in the Scriptures, who put her all 
into the Lord's treasury? — or of Jephtha's daughter, who 
made a demonstration of unselfish patriotism? — or of 
Abigail, who rescued the herds and flocks of her husband? 
— or of Ruth, who toiled under a tropical sun for poor, 
old, helpless Xaomi? — or of Florence Xightingale, who 
went at midnight to stanch the battle wounds of the 
Crimea? — or of Mrs. Adoniram Judson, who kindled the 
lights of salvation amid the darkness of Burmah? — or of 



878 NEW TABERNACLE BERMOttS. 

Mrs. Hemans, who poured out her holy soul in words 
which will forever be associated with hunter's horn, and 
captive's chain, and bridal hour, and lute's throb, and 
curfew's knell at the dying day? — and scores and hundreds 
of women, unknown on earth, who hare given water to the 
thirsty, and bread to the hungry, and medicine to the sick, 
and smiles to the discouraged — then footsteps heard along 
dark lane and in government hospital, and in almshouse 
corridor, and by prison gate? There may be no royal robe 
— there may be no palatial surroundings. She does not 
need them: for all charitable men will unite with the 
crackling lips of fever-struck hospital and plague-blotched 
lazaretto in greeting her as she passes: "Hail! Hail! 
Queen Yashti!" 

II. Again, I want you to consider Yashti the veiled. 
Had she appeared before Ahasuerus and his court on that 
day with her face uncovered she would have shocked all 
the delicacies of Oriental society, and the very men who in 
their intoxication demanded that she come, in their sober 
moments would have despised her. As some flowers seem 
to thrive best in the dark lane and in the shadow, and 
where the sun does not seem to reach them, so God ap- 
jDoints to most womanly natures a retiring and unobtrusive 
spirit 

God once in awhile does call an Isabella to a throne, or 
a Miriam to strike the timbrel at the front of a host, or a 
Marie Antoinette to quell a French mob, or a Deborah to 
stand at the front of an armed battalion, crying out, 
"Up! Up! This is the day in which the Lord will deliver 
Sisera into thy hands." And when the women are called 



THE BANISHED QUEEN". 270 

to such out-door work and to such heroic positions, God 
prepares them for it; and they have iron in their soul, and 
lightnings in their eye, and whirlwinds in their breath, 
and the borrowed strength of the Lord Omnipotent in their 
right arm. They walk through furnaces as though they 
were hedges of wild-flowers, and cross seas as though they 
were shimmering sapphire; and all the harpies of hell 
down to their dungeon at the stamp of womanly indigna- 
tion. 

But these are the exceptions. Generally, Dorcas would 
rather make a garment for the poor boy; Rebecca would 
rather fill the trough for the camels; Hannah would rather 
make a coat for Samuel; the Hebrew maid would rather 
give a prescription for Naaman's leprosy; the woman of 
Sarepta would rather gather a few sticks to cook a meal 
for famished Elijah ; Phebe would rather carry a letter for 
the inspired apostle; Mother Lois would rather educate 
Timothy in the Scriptures. When I see a woman going 
about her daily duty, with cheerful dignity presiding at the 
table, with kind and gentle, but firm discipline presiding 
in the nursery, going out into the world without any blast 
of trumpets, following in the footsteps of Him who went 
about doing good — I say: " This is Vashti with a veil on." 

But when I see a woman of unblushing boldness, loud- 
voiced, with a tongue of infinite clitter-clatter, with 
arrogant look, passing through the streets with the step of 
a walking -beam, gayly arrayed in a very hurricane of mil- 
linery, I cry out: " Vashti has lost her veil!" When I 
see a woman struggling for political preferment — trying to 
force her way on up to the ballot-box, amid the masculine 



280 KEW TABERNACLE SERMOtfS. 

demagogues who stand, with swollen fists and bloodshot 
eyes and pestiferous breath, to guard the polls — wanting to 
go through the loaferism and the defilement of popular 
sovereigns, who crawl up from the saloons greasy and foul 
and vermin-covered, to decide questions of justice and 
order and civilization — when I see a woman, I say, who 
wants to press through all that horrible scum to get to the 
ballot-box, I say: " Ah, what a pity! Vashti has lost her 
veil!" 

When I see a woman of comely features, and of adroit- 
ness of intellect, and endowed with all that the schools can 
do for one, and of high social position, yet moving in 
society with superciliousness and hauteur, as though she 
would have people know their place, and with an undefined 
combination of giggle and strut and rhodomontade, 
endowed with allopathic quantities of talk, but only 
homeopathic infinitesimals of sense, the terror of dry-goods 
clerks and railroad conductors, discoverers of significant 
meanings in plain conversation, prodigies of badinage and 
innuendo — I say: " Vashti has lost her veil." 

III. Again, I want you this morning to consider Vashti 
the sacrifice. Who is this that I see coming out of that 
jDalace gate of Shushan? It seems to me that I have seen 
her before. She comes homeless, houseless, friendless, 
trudging along with a broken heart. Who is she? It is 
Vashti the sacrifice. Oh! what a change it was from regal 
position to a wayfarer's crust! A little while ago, ap- 
proved and sought for; now, none so poor as to acknowl- 
edge her acquaintanceship. Vashti the sacrifice! 

Ah! you and I have seen it many a time. Here is a 



THE BAKlSHED QUEEN. 281 

home empalaced with beauty. All that refinement and 
books and wealth can do for that home has been done; but 
Ahasuerus, the husband and the father, is taking hold on 
paths of sin. He is gradually going down. After awhile 
he will flounder and struggle like a wild beast in the 
hunter's net — further away from God, further away from 
the right. Soon the bright apparel of the children will 
turn to rags; soon the household song will become the 
sobbing of a broken heart. The old story over again. 
Brutal Centaurs breaking up the marriage feast of Lapi- 
thae. The house full of outrage and cruelty and abomina- 
tion, while trudging forth from the palace gate are Vashti 
and her children. There are homes represented in this 
house this morning that are in danger of such breaking- 
up. Oh, Ahasuerus! that you should stand in a home, by 
a dissipated life destroying the peace and comfort of that 
home. God forbid that your children should ever have to 
wring their hands, and have people point their finger at 
them as they pass down the street, and say, " There goes a 
drunkard's child." God forbid that the little feet should 
ever have to trudge the path of poverty and wretchedness! 
God forbid that any evil spirit born of the wine-cup or the 
brandy-glass should come forth and uproot that garden, 
and with a lasting, blistering, all-consuming curse, shut 
forever the palace gate against Vashti and the children. 

One night during the war I went to Hagerstown to look 
at the army, and I stood on a hill-top and looked down 
upon them. I saw the camp-fires all through the valleys 
and all over the hills. It was a weird spectacle, those 
camp-fires, and I stood and watched them; and the sol- 



282 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

diers who were gathered around them were, no doubt, 
talking of their homes, and of the long march they had 
taken, and of the battles they were to fight; but after 
awhile I saw these camp-fires begin to lower; and they 
continued to lower, until they were all gone out, and the 
army slept. It was imposing when I saw the camp-fires; 
it was imposing in the darkness when I thought of that 
great host asleej). Well, God looks down from heaven, 
and He sees the fireside of Christendom and the loved 
ones gathered around these firesides. These are the 
camp-fires where we warm ourselves at the close of day, 
and talk over the battles of life we have fought and the 
battles that are yet to come. God grant that when at last 
these fires begin to go out, and continue to lower until 
finally they are extinguished, and the ashes of consumed 
hopes strew the hearth of the old homestead, it may be be- 
cause we have 

Gone to sleep that last long sleep, 
From wLich none ever wake to weep." 

Now we are an army on the march of life. Then we 
shall be an army bivouacked in the tent of the grave. 

IV. Once more : I want you to look at Vashti the silent. 
You do not hear any outcry from this woman as she goes 
forth from the palace gate. From the very dignity of her 
nature, you know there will be no vociferation. Some- 
times in life it is necessary to make a retort; sometimes in 
life it is necessary to resist; but there are crises when the 
most triumphant thiug to do is to keep silence. The 
philosopher, confident in his newly discovered principle, 



THE BANISHED QUEEN. 283 

waited for the coming of more intelligent generations, 
willing that men should laugh at the lightning-rod and cot- 
ton-gin and steam-boat — waiting for long years through 
the scoffing of philosophical schools, in grand and magnifi- 
cent silence. 

Galileo, condemned by mathematicians and monks and 
cardinals, caricatured everywhere, yet waiting and watch- 
ing with his telescope to see the coming up of stellar re- 
enforcements, when the- stars in their courses would fight 
for the Copernican system; then sitting down in complete 
blindness and deafness to wait for the coming on of the 
generations who would build his monument and bow at his 
grave. The reformer, execrated by his contemporaries, 
fastened in a pillory, the slow fires of public contempt 
burning under him, ground under the cylinders of the 
printing-press, yet calmly waiting for the day when purity 
of soul and heroism of character will get the sanction of 
earth and the plaudits of heaven. 

Affliction enduring without any complaint the sharpness 
of the pang, and the violence of the storm, and the heft of 
the chain, and the darkness of the night — waiting ontil a 
Divine hand shall be put forth to soothe the pang, and 
hush the storm, and release the captive. A wife abused, 
persecuted, and a perpetual exile from every earthly com- 
fort — waiting, waiting, until the Lord shall gather up His 
dear children in a heavenly home, and no poor Vashti will 
ever be thrust out from the palace gate. 

Jesus, in silence and answering not a word, drinking 
the gall, bearing the cross, in prospect of the rapturous 
consummation when 



284 KEW TABERKACLE SERMONS. 

" Angels thronged their chariot wheel, 
And bore Him to His throne; 
Then swept their golden harps and sung, 
' The glorious work is done ! ' " 

Oh, woman! does not this story of Vashti the queen, 
Vashti the veiled, Vashti the sacrifice, Vashti the silent, 
move your soul? My sermon converges into the one ab- 
sorbing hope that none of you may be shut out of the pal- 
ace gate of heaven. You can endure the hardships, and 
the privations, and the cruelties, and the misfortunes of 
this life if you can only gain admission there. Through 
the blood of the everlasting covenant you go through those 
gates, or never go at all. God forbid that you should at 
last be banished from the society of angels, and banished 
from the companionship of your glorified kindred, and 
banished forever. Through the rich grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, may you be enabled to imitate the example 
of Rachel, and Hannah, and Abigail, and Deborah, and 
Mary, and Esther, and Vashti. 



THE DAY WE LIVE IN. 



" Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such 
a time as this?" — Esther iv: 14. 

Esther the beautiful was the wife of Ahasuerus the 
abominable. The time had come for her to present a 
petition to her infamous husband in behalf of the Jewish 
nation, to which she had once belonged. She was afraid 
to undertake the work, lest she should lose her own life; 
but her uncle, Mordecai, who had brought her up, encour- 
aged her with the suggestion that probably she had been 
raised up of God for that peculiar mission. " Who 
knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a 
time as this?" Esther had her God-appointed work; you 
and I have ours. It is my business to tell you what style 
of men and women you ought to be in order that you meet 
the demand of the age in which God has cast your lot. If 
you have come expecting to hear abstractions discussed, or 
dry technicalities of religion glorified, you have come to 
the wrong church; but if you really would like to know 
what this age has a right to expect of you as Christian men 
and women, then I am ready in the Lord's name to look 
you in the face. When two armies have rushed into battle 
the officers of either army do not want a philosophical dis- 
cussion about the chemical properties of human blood or 

(285) 



286 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

the nature of gunpowder; they want some one to man the 
batteries and swab out the guns. And now, when all the 
forces of light and darkness, of heaven and hell, have 
plunged into the fight, it is no time to give ourselves to 
the definitions and formulas and technicalities and conven- 
tionalities of religion. 

What we want is practical, earnest, concentrated, enthu- 
siastic, and triumphant help. 

I. In the first place, in order to meet the special de- 
mand of this age, you need to be an unmistakably aggress- 
ive Christian. Of half-and-half Christians we do not 
want any more. The Church of Jesus Christ will be bet- 
ter without ten thousand of them. They are the chief 
obstacle to the Church's advancement. I am speaking of 
another kind of Christian. .All the appliances for your 
becoming an earnest Christian are at your hand, and there 
is a straight path for you into the broad daylight of God's 
forgiveness. You may have come into this Tabernacle the 
bondsmen of the world, and yet before you go out of these 
doors you may become princes of the Lord God Almighty. 
You remember what excitement there was in this coun- 
try, years ago, when the Prince of Wales came here — how 
the people rushed out by hundreds of thousands to see 
him. Why? Because they expected that some day he 
would sit upon the throne of England. But what was all 
that honor compared with the honor to which God calls 
you — to be sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty; 
yea, to be queens and kings unto God? " They shall 
reign with Him forever and forever." 

But, my friends, you need to be aggressive Christians, 



THE DAY WE LIVE IN. 287 

and not like those persons who spend their lives in hug- 
ging their Christian graces and wondering why they do not 
make any progress. How much robustness of health 
would a man have if he hid himself in a dark closet? A 
great deal of the piety of the day is too exclusive. It hides 
itself. It needs more fresh air, more out-door exercise. 
There are many Christians who are giving their entire life 
to self-examination. They are feeling their pulses to see 
what is the condition of their spiritual health. How long 
would a man have robust physical health if he kept all the 
days and weeks and months and years of his life feeling 
his pulse instead of going out into active, earnest, every- 
day work? 

I was once amid the wonderful, bewitching cactus 
growths of North Carolina. I never was more bewildered 
with the beauty of flowers, and yet when I would take up 
one of these cactuses and pull the leaves apart, the beauty 
was all gone. You could hardly tell that it had ever been 
a flower. And there are a great many Christian people in 
this day just pulling apart their Christian experiences to 
see what there is in them, and there is nothing left in 
them. This style of self-examination is a damage instead 
of an advantage to their Christian character. I remember 
when I was a boy I used to have a small piece in the gar- 
den that I called my own, and I planted corn there, and 
every few days I would pull it up to see how fast it was 
growing. Now, there are a great many Christian people 
in this day whose self-examination merely amounts to the 
pulling up of that which they only yesterday or the day 
before planted. 



290 NEW TABEKNACLE SEKMONS. 

thing for the Church to sleep! The great audiences are- 
not gathered in the Christian churches; the great audi- 
ences are gathered in temples of sin — tears of unutterable 
woe their baptism, the blood of crushed hearts the awful 
wine of their sacrament, blasphemies their litany, and the 
groans of the lost world the organ dirge of their worship. 

II. Again, if you want to be qualified to meet the duties 
which this age demands of you, you must on the one hand 
avoid reckless iconoclasm, and on the other hand not stick 
too much to things because they are old. The air is full 
of new plans, new projects, new theories of government, 
new theologies, and I am amazed to see how so many 
Christians want only novelty in order to recommend a 
thing to their confidence; and so they vacillate and swing 
to and fro, and they are useless, and they are unhappy. 
New plans — secular, ethical, philosophical, religious, cis- 
atlantic, transatlantic — long enough to make a line reach- 
ing from the German universities to Great Salt Lake City. 
Ah, my brother, do not take hold of a thing merely because 
it is new. Try it by the realities of a Judgment Day. 

But, on the other hand, donot adhere to any thing mere- 
ly because it is old. There is not a single enterprise of the 
Church or the world but has sometimes been scoffed at. 
There was a time when men derided even Bible societies; 
and when a few young men met near a hay-stack in Massa- 
chusetts and organized the first missionary society ever 
organized in this country, there went laughter and ridicule 
all around the Christian Church. They said the under- 
taking was preposterous. And so also the work of Jesus 
t'hrist was assailed. People cried out, " Who ever heard 



THE DAY WE LIVE IN. 291 

of such theories of ethics and government? Who ever 
noticed such a style of preaching as Jesus has?" Ezekiel 
had talked of mysterious wings and wheels. Here came a 
man from Capernaum and Gennesaret, and he drew his 
illustration from the lakes, from the sand, from the ravine, 
from the lilies, from the corn-stalks. How the Pharisees 
scoffed! How Herod derided! How Caiaphas hissed! 
And this Jesus they plucked by the beard, and they spat 
in his face, and they called him " this fellow!" All the 
great enterprises in and out of the Church have at times 
been scoffed at, and there have been a great multitude who 
have thought that the chariot of God's truth would fall to 
pieces if it once got out of the old rut. 

And so there are those who have no patience with any- 
thing like improvement in church architecture, or with 
anything like good, hearty, earnest church singing, and 
they deride any form of religious discussion which goes 
down walking among every-day men rather than that 
which makes an excursion on rhetorical stilts. Oh, that 
the Church of God would wake up to an adaptability of 
work! We must admit the simple fact that the churches 
of Jesus Christ in this day do not reach the great masses. 
There are fifty thousand people in Edinburgh who never 
hear the Gospel. There are one million people in London 
who never hear the Gospel. There are at least three hun- 
dred thousand souls in the city of Brooklyn who come not 
under the immediate ministrations of Christ's truth; and 
the Church of God in this day, instead of being a place full 
of living epistles, read and known of all men, is more like 
a " dead-letter " post-office. 



292 hew tabernacle sermons. 

" But," say the people, " the world is going to be con- 
verted; you must be patient; the kingdoms of this world 
are to become the kingdoms of Christ." Never, unless 
the Church of Jesus Christ puts on more speed and 
energy. Instead of the Church converting the world, the 
world is converting the Church. Here is a great fortress. 
How shall it be taken? An army comes and sits around 
about it, cuts off the supplies, and says: " Now we will 
just wait until from exhaustion and starvation they will 
have to give up." Weeks and months, and perhaps a year, 
pass along, and finally the fortress surrenders through that 
starvation and exhaustion. But, my friends, the fort- 
resses of sin are never to be taken in that way. If they 
are taken for God it will be by storm; you will have to 
bring up the great siege guns of the Gospel to the very wall 
and wheel the flying artillery into line, and when the 
armed infantry of heaven shall confront the battlements 
you will have to give the quick command, "Forward! 
Charge!" 

Ah, my friends, there is work for you to do and for me 
to do in order "to this grand accomplishment! Here is my 
pulpit, and I preach in it. Your pulpit is the bank. 
Your pulpit is the store. Your pulpit is the editorial 
chair. Your pulpit is the anvil. Your pulpit is the house 
scaffolding. Your pulpit is the mechanic's shop. I may 
stand in this place and, through cowardice or through self- 
seeking, may keep back the word I ought to utter; while 
you, with sleeve rolled up and brow besweated with toil, 
may utter the word that will jar the foundations of heaven 
with the shout of a great victory. Oh, that this morning 



THE BAY WE LITE IX. 29-3 

this whole audience might feel that the Lord Almighty 
was putting upon them the hands of ordination. I tell 
you, every one, go forth and preach this gospel. You 
have as much right to preach as I have, or as any man 
has. Only find out the pulpit where God will have you 
preach, and there preach. 

Hedley Vicars was a wicked man in the English army. 
The grace of God came to him. He became an earnest 
and eminent Christian. They scoffed at him, and said: 
" You are a hypocrite; you are as bad as ever you were." 
Still he kept his faith in Christ, and after awhile, finding 
that they could not turn him aside by calling him a hypo- 
crite, they said to him: "Oh, you are nothing but a 
Methodist." That did not disturb him. He went on 
performing his Christian duty until he had. formed all his 
troop into a Bible-class, and the whole encampment was 
shaken with the presence of God. So Havelock went into 
the heathen temple in India while the English army was 
there, and put a candle into the hand of each of the 
heathen gods that stood around in the heathen temple, 
and by the light of those candles, held up by the idols, 
General Havelock preached righteousness, temperance, 
and judgment to come. And who will say, on earth or in 
Heaven, that Havelock had. not the right to preach ? 

In the minister's house where I prepared for college, 
there was a man who worked, by the name of Peter Croy. 
He could neither read nor write, but he was a man of God. 
Often theologians would stop in the house — grave theo- 
logians — and at family prayers Peter Croy would be called 
upon to lead; and all those wise men sat around, wonder- 



894 XEW TABERXACLE SEEM0X3. 

struck at his religious efficiency. TTtaen he prayed he 
reached up and seemed to take hold of the very throne of 
the Almighty, and he talked with God until the very 
heavens were bowed down into the sitting-room. Oh, if I 
were dying I would rather have plain Peter Croy kneel by 
my bedside and commend my immortal spirit to God than 
the greatest archbishop, arrayed in costly canonicals. Go 
preach this Gospel. You say you are not licensed. In 
the name of the Lord Almighty, this morning, I license 
you. Go preach this Gospel — preach it in the Sabbath- 
schools, in the prayer-meetings, in the highways, in the 
hedges. Woe be unto you if you preach it not. 

III. I remark, again, that in order to be qualified to 
meet your duty in this particular age you want unbounded 
faith in the triumph of the truth and the overthrow of 
wickedness. How dare the Christian Church ever get dis- 
couraged? Have we not the Lord Almighty on our side? 
How long did it take God to slay the hosts of Sennacherib 
or burn Sodom or shake down Jericho? How long will it 
take God, when He once arises in His strength, to overthrow 
all the forces of iniquity? Between this time and that there 
may be long seasons of darkness — the chariot-wheels of God's 
Gospel may seem to drag heavily: but here is the promise, 
and yonder is the throne: and when Omniscience has lost 
its eyesight, and Omnipotence falls back impotent, and 
Jehovah is driven from His throne, then the Church of 
Jesus Christ can afford to be despondent, but never until 
then. Despots may ])lan and armies may march, and the 
congresses of the nations may seem to think they are 
adjusting all the affairs of the world, but the mighty men 



THE DAY WE LITE Itf. 295 

of the earth are only the dust of the chariot-wheels of 
God's providence. 

I think that before the sun of this century shall set the 
last tyranny will fall, and with a splendor of demonstra- 
tion that shall be the astonishment of the universe God 
will set forth the brightness and pomp and glory and per- 
petuity of His eternal government. Out of the starry 
flags and the emblazoned insignia of this world God will 
make a path for His own triumph, and, returning from 
universal conquest, He will sit down, the grandest, strong- 
est, highest throne of earth His footstool. 

" Then shall all nations' song ascend 
To Thee, our Ruler, Father, Friend, 
Till heaven's high arch resounds again 
With ' Peace on earth, good will to men.' " 

I preach this sermon because I want to encourage all 
Christian workers in every possible department. Hosts of 
the living God, march on! march on! His Spirit will bless 
you. His shield will defend you. His sword will strike 
for you. March on ! march on ! The despotism will fall, 
and paganism will burn its idols, and Mohammedanism 
will give up its false prophet, and Judaism will confess the 
true Messiah, and the great walls of superstition will come 
down in thunder and wreck at the long, loud blast of the 
Gosj)el trumpet. March on! march on! The besiege- 
ment will soon be ended. Only a few more steps on the 
long way; only a few more sturdy blows; only a few more 
battle cries, then God will jiut the laurel upon your brow, 
and from the living fountains of heaven will bathe off the 



296 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

sweat and the heat and the dust of the conflict. March 
on! march on! For you the time for work will soon be 
passed, and amid the outflashings of the judgment 
throne, and the trumpeting of resurrection angels, and the 
upheaving of a world of graves, and the hosanna and the 
groaning of the saved and the lost, we shall be rewarded 
for our faithfulness or punished for our stupidity. Blessed 
be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, 
and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen 
and Amen. 



CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
so to them." — Matt, vii: 12. 

The greatest war the world has ever seen is between 
capital and labor. The strife is not like that which in his- 
tory is called the Thirty Years' War, for it is a war of cent- 
uries, it is a war of the five continents, it is a war hemi- 
spheric. The middle classes in this country, upon whom 
the nation has depended for holding the balance of power 
and for acting as mediators between the two extremes, are 
diminishing; and if things go on at the same ratio as they 
are now going, it will not be very long before there will be 
no middle class in tins country, but all will be very rich or 
very poor, princes or paupers, and the country will be 
given up to palaces and hovels. 

The antagonistic forces are closing in upon each other. 
The telegraphic operators' strikes, the railroad employes' 
strikes, the Pennsylvania miners' strikes, the movements 
of the Boycotters and the dynamiters are only skirmishes 
before a general engagement, or, if you prefer it, escapes 
through the safety-valves of an imprisoned force which 
promises the explosion of society. You may pooh-pooh it; 
you may say that this trouble, like an angry child, will cry 
itself to sleep; you may belittle it by calling it Fourierism, 

(297) 



298 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

or Socialism, or St. Simonism, or Nihilism, or Commu- 
nism; but that will not hinder the fact that it is the mighti- 
est, the darkest, the most terrific threat of this century. 
All attempts at pacification have been dead failures, and 
monopoly rs more arrogant, and the trades unions more 
bitter. " Give us more wages," cry the employes. " You 
shall have less," say the capitalists. " Compel us to do 
fewer hours of toil in a day." " You shall toil more 
hours," say the others. " Then, under certain conditions, 
we will not work at all," say these. " Then you shall 
starve," say those, and the workmen gradually using up 
that which they accumulated in better times, unless there 
be some radical change, we shall have soon in this country 
three million hungry men and women. Now, three mill- 
ion hungry people can not be kept quiet. All the enact- 
ments of legislatures and all the constabularies of the 
cities, and all the army and navy of the United States can 
not keep three million hungry people quiet. What then? 
Will this war between capital and labor be settled by 
human wisdom? Never. The brow of the one becomes 
more rigid, the fist of the other more clinched. 

But that which human wisdom can not achieve will be 
accomplished by Christianity if it be given full sway. 
You have heard of medicines so powerful that one drop 
would stop a disease and restore a patient; and I have to 
tell you that one drop of my text properly administered 
will stop all these woes of society and give convalescence 
and complete health to all classes. " Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. " 

I shall first show you this morning how this quarrel be- 



CAriTAL AND LABOR. 299 

tween monopoly and hard work can not be stopped, and 
then I will show you how this controversy will be settled. 

Futile remedies. In the first place, there will come no 
pacification to this trouble through an outcry against rich 
men merely because they are rich. There is no member 
of a trades-union on earth that would not be rich if he 
could be. Sometimes through a fortunate invention, or 
through some accident of prosperity, a man who had noth- 
ing comes to large estate, and we see him arrogant and 
supercilious, and taking people by the throat just as other 
people took him by the throat. There is something very 
mean about human nature when it comes to the top. But 
it is no more a sin to be rich than it is a sin to be poor. 
There are those who have gathered a great estate through 
fraud, and then there are millionaires who have gathered 
their fortune through foresight in regard to changes in the 
markets, and through brilliant business faculty, and every 
dollar of their estate is as honest as the dollar which the 
plumber gets for mending a pipe, or the mason gets for 
building a wall. There are those who keep in poverty be- 
cause of their own fault. They might have been well-off, 
but they smoked or chewed up their earnings, or they lived 
beyond their means, while others on the same wages and 
on the same salaries went on to competency. I know a 
man who is all the time complaining of his poverty and 
crying out against rich men, while he himself keeps two 
dogs, and chews and smokes, and is filled to the chin with 
whisky and beer! 

Micawber said to David Copperfield: " Copperfield, my 
boy, one pound income, twenty shillings and sixpence ex- 



300 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

peases: result misery. But, Copperfield, my boy, one 
pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and sixpence; 
result, happiness. " And there are vast multitudes of peo- 
ple who are kept poor because they are the victims of their 
own improvidence. It is no sin to be rich, and it is no sin 
to be jdooi*. I protest against this outcry which I hear 
against those who, through economy and self-denial and 
assiduity, have come to large fortune. This bombard- 
ment of commercial success will never stop this quarrel 
between capital and labor. 

Neither will the contest be settled by cynical and un- 
sympathetic treatment of the laboring classes. There are 
those who speak of them as though they were only cattle 
or draught horses. Their nerves are nothing, their domes- 
tic comfort is nothing, their happiness is nothing. They 
have no more sympathy for them than a hound has for a 
hare, or a hawk for a hen, or a tiger for a calf. When 
Jean Yaljean, the greatest hero of Victor Hugo's writings, 
after a life of suffering and brave endurance, goes into in- 
carceration and death, they clap the book shut and say, 
" Good for him!" They stamp their feet with indigna- 
tion and say just the opposite of " Save the working- 
classes." They have all their sympathies with Shylock, 
and not with Antonio and Portia. They are plutocrats, 
and their feelings are infernal. They are filled with irrita- 
tion and irascibility on this subject. To stop this awful 
imbroglio between capital and labor they will lift not so 
much as the tap end of the little finger. 

Neither will there be any pacification of this angry con- 
troversy through violence. God never blessed murder. 



CAPITAL AND LAEOK. 301 

The poorest use you can put a man to is to kill him. 
Blow up to-morrow all the country-seats on the banks of 
the Hudson, and all the fine houses on Madison Square, 
and Brooklyn Heights, and Bunker Hill, and Ivittenhouse 
Square, and Beacon Street, and all the bricks and timber 
and stone will just fall back on the bare head of American 
labor. The worst enemies of the working-classes in the 
United States and Ireland are their demented coadjutors. 
Assassination — the assassination of Lord Frederick Caven- 
dish and Mr. Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, in 
the attempt to avenge the wrongs of Ireland, only turned 
away from that afflicted people millions of sympathizers. 
The recent attempt to blow up the House of Commons, in 
London, had only this effect: to throw out of employment 
tens of thousands of innocent Irish people in England. 

In this country the torch put to the factories that have 
discharged hands for good or bad reason; obstructions on 
the rail-track in front of midnight express trains because 
the offenders do not like the president of the company; 
strikes on shipboard the hour they were going to sail, or in 
printing-offices the hour the paper was to go to press, or 
in mines the day the coal was to be delivered, or on house 
scaffoldings so the builder fails in keeping his contract — 
all these are only a hard blow on the head of American 
labor, and cripple its arms, and lame its feet, and pierce 
its heart. Take the last great strike in America — the tele- 
graph operators'' strike — and you have to find that the 
operators lost four hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
wages, and have had poorer wages ever since. Traps 
sprung suddenly upon employers, and violence, never took 



302 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

one knot out of the knuckle of toil, or put one farthing of 
wages into a callous jmlru. Barbarism will never cure the 
wrongs of civilization. Mark that ! 

Frederick the Great admired some land near his palace 
at Potsdam, and he resolved to get it. It was owned by a 
miller. He offered the miller three times the value of the 
property. The miller would not take it, because it was 
the old homestead, and he felt about as Xaboth felt about 
his vineyard when Ahab wanted it. Frederick the Great 
was a rough and terrible man, and he ordered the miller 
into his presence; and the king, with a stick in his hand 
— a stick with which he sometimes struck his officers of 
state — said to this miller: " Xow, I have offered you three 
times the value of that property, and if you won't sell it 
F 11 take it anyhow." The miller said, " Your majesty, 
you won't." *'*' Yes," said the king, "I will take it." 
" Then," said the miller, " if your majesty does take it, I 
will sue you in the Chancery Court/' At that threat 
Frederick the Great yielded his infamous demand. And 
the most imperious outrage against the working-classes 
will yet cower before the law. Violence and contrary to 
the law will never accomplish anything, but righteousness 
and according to law will accomplish it. 

Well, if this controversy between Capital and Labor can 
not be settled by human wisdom, if to-day Capital and 
Labor stand with their thumbs on each other's throat — as 
they do — it is time for us to look somewhere else for relief, 
and it points from my text roseate and jubilant, and puts 
one hand on the broadcloth shoulder of Capital, and puts 
the other hand on the homespun-covered shoulder of Toil, 



CAPITAL AND LABOR. 303 

and says, with a voice that will grandly and gloriously set- 
tle this, and settle everything, " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them." That is, 
the lady of the household will say: " I must treat the 
maid in the kitchen just as I would like to be treated if I 
were down-stairs, and it were my work to wash, and cook, 
and sweep, and it were the duty of the maid in the kitchen 
to preside in this parlor." The maid in the kitchen must 
say: " If my employer seems to be more prosperous than 
I, that is no fault of hers; I shall not treat her as an 
enemy. I will have the same industry and fidelity down- 
stairs as I would expect from my subordinates, if I hap- 
pened to be the wife of a silk importer." 

The owner of an iron mill, having taken a dose of my 
text before leaving home in the morning, will go into his 
foundry, and, passing into what is called the puddling- 
room, he will see a man there stripped to the waist, and 
besweated and exhausted with the labor and the toil, and 
he will say to him: "Why, it seems to be very hot in 
here. You look very much exhausted. I hear your child 
is sick with scarlet fever. If you want your wages a little 
earlier this week, so as to pay the nurse and get the medi- 
cines, just come into my office any time." 

After awhile, crash goes the money market, and there is 
no more demand for the articles manufactured in that iron 
mill, and the owner does not know what to do. He says, 
" Shall I stop the mill, or shall I run it on half time, or 
shall I cut down the men's wages?" He walks the floor 
of his counting-room all day, hardly knowing what to do. 
Toward evening he calls all the laborers together. They 



304 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

stand all around, some with arms akimbo, some with fold- 
ed arms, wondering what the boss is going to do now. 
The manufacturer says: " Men, times are very hard; I 
don't make twenty dollars where I used to make one hun- 
dred. Somehow, there is no demand now for what we 
manufacture, or but very little demand. You see I am at 
vast expense, and I have called you together this afternoon 
to see what you would advise. I don't want to shut up 
the mill, because that would force you out of work, and 
you have always been very faithful, and I like you, and 
you seem to like me, and the bairns must be looked after, 
and your wife will after awhile want a new dress. I don't 
know what to do." 

There is a dead halt for a minute or two, and then one 
of the workmen steps out from the ranks of his fellows, 
and says: " Boss, you have been very good to us, and 
when you prospered we prospered, and now you are in a 
tight place and I am sorry, and we have got to sympathize 
with you. I don't know how the others feel, but I pro- 
pose that we take off twenty per cent, from our wages, and 
that when the times get good you will remember us and 
raise them again." The workman looks around to his 
comrades, and says: " Boys, what do you say to this? all 
in favor of my proposition will say ay." " Ay! ay! ay!" 
shout two hundred voices. 

But the mill-owner, getting in some new machinery, ex- 
poses himself very much, and takes cold, and it settles into 
pneumonia, and he dies. In the procession to the tomb 
are all the workmen, tears rolling down their cheeks, and 
off upon the ground; but an hour before the procession 



CAPITAL AND LABOE. 305 

gets to the cemetery the wives and the children of those 
workmen are at the grave waiting for the arrival of the 
funeral pageant. The minister of religion may have de- 
livered an eloquent eulogium before they started from the 
house, but the most impressive things are said that day by 
the working-classes standing around the tomb. 

That night in all the cabins of the working-people 
where they have family prayers the widowhood and the 
orphanage in the mansion are remembered. No glaring 
populations look over the iron fence of the cemetery; but, 
hovering over the scene, the benediction of God and man 
is coming for the fulfillment of the Christlike injunction, 
" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them." 

" Oh," says some man here, " that is all Utopian, that 
is apocryphal, that is impossible." No. Yesterday, I 
cut out of a paper this: " One of the pleasantest incidents 
recorded in a long time is reported from Sheffield, Eng- 
land. The wages of the men in the iron works at Shef- 
field are regulated by a board of arbitration, by whose de- 
cision both masters and men are bound. For some time 
past the iron and steel trade has been extremely unprofit- 
able, and the employers can not, without much loss, pay 
the wages fixed by the board, which neither employers nor 
employed have the power to change. To avoid this diffi- 
culty, the workmen in one of the largest steel works in 
Sheffield hit upon a device as rare as it was generous. 
They offered to work for their employers one week without 
any pay whatever. How much better that plan is than a 
strike would be." 



306 MTBW TABEBXACLE SERMONS. 

But you go with me and I will show you — not so far off 
as Sheffield. England — factories, banking-houses, store- 
houses, and costly enterprises where this Christ -like injunc- 
tion of ruy text is fully ke]3t, and you could no more get 
the employer to practice an injustice uj)on his men, or the 
men to conspire against the employer, than you could get 
your right hand and your left hand, your right eye and 
your left eye, your right ear and your left ear, into physi- 
ological antagonism. Xow, where is this to begin? In 
our homes, in our stores, on our farms — not waiting for 
other people to do their -duty. Is there a divergence now 
between the parlor and the kitchen? Then there is some- 
thing wrong, either in the parlor or the kitchen, perhaps 
in both. Are the clerks in your store irate against the 
firm? Then there is something wrong, either behind the 
counter, or in the private office, or perhaps in both. 

The great want of the world to-day is the fulfillment of 
this Christ-like injunction, that which He promulgated in 
His sermon Olivetic. All the political economists under 
the arch or vault of the heavens in convention for a thou- 
sand years can not settle this controversy between monop- 
oly and hard work, between capital and labor. During 
the Revolutionary War there was a heavy piece of timber to 
be lifted, perhaps for some fortress, and a corporal was 
overseeing the work, and he was giving commands to some 
soldiers as they lifted: ''Heave away, there! yo heave!''' 
"Well, the timber was too heavy: they could not get it up. 
There was a gentleman riding by on a horse, and he 
stopped and said to this corporal. " Why don't you help 
them lift? That timber is too heavy for them to lift.'' 



CAPITAL A^D LABOK. 307 

" No," he said, " I won't; I am a corporal." The gen- 
tleman got off his horse and came up to the place. 
" Now," he said to the soldiers, " all together — yo 
heave!" and the timber went to its place. " Now," said 
the gentleman to the corporal, " when you have a piece of 
timber too heavy for the men to lift, and you want help, 
you send to your commander-in-chief." It was Washing- 
ton. Now, that is about all the Gospel I know — the Gos- 
pel of giving somebody a lift, a lift out of darkness, a lift 
out of earth into heaven. That is all the Gospel I know 
— the Gospel of helping somebody else to lift. 

" Oh," says some wiseacre, " talk as you will, the law 
of demand and supply will regulate these things until the 
end of time." No, they will not, unless God dies and the 
batteries of the Judgment Day are spiked, and Pluto and 
Proserpine, king and queen of the infernal regions, take 
full possession of this world. Do you know who Supply 
and Demand are? They have gone into partnership, and 
they propose to swindle this earth and are swindling it. 
You are drowning. Supply and Demand stand on the 
shore, one on one side, the other on the other side, of the 
life-boat, and they cry out to you, " Now, you pay us what 
we ask you for getting you to shore, or go to the bottom!" 
If you can borrow $5000 you can keep from failing in busi- 
ness. Supply and Demand say, " Now, you pay us ex- 
orbitant usury, or you go into bankruptcy." This robber 
firm of Supply and Demand say to you: " The crops are 
short. We bought up all the wheat and it is in our bin. 
Now, you pay our price or starve. " That is your magnifi- 
cent law of supply and demand. 



308 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

Supply and Demand own the largest mill on earth, and 
all the rivers roll over their wheel, and into their hopper 
they put all the men, women, and children they can shovel 
out of the centuries, and the blood and the bones redden 
the valley while the mill grinds. That diabolic law of 
supply and demand will yet have to stand aside, and in- 
stead thereof will come the law of love, the law of co- 
operation, the law of kindness, the law of sympathy, the 
law of Christ. 

Have you no idea of the coming of such a time? Then 
you do not believe the Bible. All the Bible is full of 
joromises on this subject, and as the ages roll on the time 
will come when men or fortune will be giving larger sums 
to humanitarian and evangelistic purposes, and there will 
be more James Lenoxes and Peter Coopers and William 
E. Dodges and George Peabodys. As that time comes there 
will be more parks, more picture-galleries, more gardens 
thrown open for the holiday people and the working-classes. 

I was reading only this morning in regard to a charge 
that had been made in England against Lambeth Palace, 
that it was exclusive; and that charge demonstrated the 
sublime fact that to the grounds of that wealthy estate eight 
hundred poor families have free passes, and forty croquet 
conrpanies, and on the half-day holidays four thousand 
poor people recline on the grass, walk through the j:>aths, 
and sit under the trees. That is Gospel — Gosj^el on the 
wing, Gospel out-of-doors worth just as much as in-doors. 
That time is going to come. 

That is only a hint of what is going to be. The time is 
going to come when, if you have anything in your house 



CAPITAL AND LABOE. 309 

worth looking at — pictures, pieces of sculpture — you are 
going to invite me to come and see it, you are going to in- 
vite my friends to come and see it, and you will say, ' ' See 
what I have been blessed with. God has given me this, and 
so far as enjoying it, it is yours also." That is Gospel. 

In crossing the Alleghany Mountains, many years ago, 
the stage halted, and Henry Clay dismounted from the 
stage, and went out on a rock at the very verge of the 
cliff, and he stood there with his cloak wrapped about 
him, and he seemed to be listening for something. Some 
one said to him, " What are you listening for?" Stand- 
ing there, on the top of the mountain, he said: " I am 
listening to the tramp of the footsteps of the coming mill- 
ions of this continent." A sublime posture for an 
American statesman! You and I to-day stand on the 
mountain-top of privilege, and on the Rock of Ages, and 
we look off, and we hear coming from the future the 
happy industries, and smiling populations, and the conse- 
crated fortunes, and the innumerable prosperities of the 
closing nineteenth and the opening twentieth century. 

While I speak this morning, there lies in state the dead 
author and patriot of France, Victor Hugo. The ten 
thousand dollars in his will he has given to the poor of the 
city are only a hint of the work he has done for all nations 
and for all times. I wonder not that they allow eleven 
days to pass between his death and his burial, his body 
meantime kept under triumphal arch, for the world can 
hardly afford to let go this man who for more than eight 
decades has by his unparalleled genius blessed it. His 
name shall be a terror to all despots, and an encourage- 



310 KEW TABERNACLE SERMON'S. 

ment to all the struggling. He lias made the world's bur- 
den lighter, and its darkness less dense, and its chain less 
galling, and its thrones of iniquity less secure. Farewell, 
patriot, genius of the century, Victor Hugo! But he was 
not the overtowering friend of mankind. 

The greatest friend of capitalist and toiler, and the one 
who will yet bring them together in complete accord, was 
born one Christmas night while the curtains of heaven 
swung, stirred by the wings angelic. Owner of all things 
— all the continents, all worlds/ and all the islands of 
light. Capitalist of immensity, crossing over to our con- 
dition. Coming into our world, not by gate of palace, 
but by door of barn. Spending His first night amid the 
shepherds. Gathering after around Him the fishermen to 
be His chief attendants. With adze, and* saw, and chisel, 
and ax, and in a carpenter-shop showing himself brother 
with the tradesmen. Owner of all things, and yet on a 
hillock back of Jerusalem one day resigning everything for 
others, keeping not so much as a shekel to pay for His ob- 
sequies, by charity buried in the suburbs of a city that had 
cast Him out. Before the cross of such a capitalist, and 
such a carpenter, all men can afford to shake hands 
and worship. Here is the every man's Christ. None so 
high, but He was higher. None so poor, but He was 
poorer. At His feet the hostile extremes will yet renounce 
their animosities, and countenances which have glowered 
with the prejudices and revenge of centuries shall brighten 
with the smile of heaven as He commands: " Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them." 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 



" So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done 
under the sun : and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and 
they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there 
was power; but they had no comforter." — Eccles. iv: 1. 

Veky long ago the needle was busy. It was considered 
honorable for women to toil in olden time. Alexander the 
Great stood in his palace showing garments made by his 
own mother. The finest tapestries at Bayeux were made 
by the queen of William the Conqueror. Augustus, the 
Emperor, would not wear any garments except those that 
were fashioned by some member of his royal family. So 
let the toiler everywhere be respected! 

The needle has slain more than the sword. When the 
sewing-machine was invented some thought that invention 
would alleviate woman's toil and put an end to the despot- 
ism of the needle. But no; while the sewing-machine has 
been a great blessing to well-to-do families in many cases, 
it has added to the stab of the needle the crush of the 
wheel; and multitudes of women, notwithstanding the re- 
enforcement of these wing- machines, can only make, w r ork 
hard as they will, between two dollars and three dollars per 
week. 

The greatest blessing that could have happened to our 

(311) 



312 NEW TABEftNACLE SE&M6NS. 

first parents was being turned out of Eden after they had 
done wrong. Adam and Eve, in their perfect state, might 
have got along without work, or only such slight employ- 
ment as a perfect garden with no weeds in it demanded. 
But as soon as they had sinned, the best thing for them 
was to be turned out where they would have to work. We 
know what a withering thing it is for a man to have noth- 
ing to do. Old Ashbel Green, at fourscore years, when 
asked why he kept on working, said: "I do so to keep out 
of mischief." We see that a man who has a large amount 
of money to start with has no chance. Of the thousand 
prosperous and honorable men that you know, nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine had to work vigorously at the begin- 
ning. But I am now to tell you that industry is just as 
important for a woman's safety and happiness. The most 
unhappy women in our communities to-day are those who 
have no engagements to call them up in the morning; 
who, once having risen and breakfasted, lounge through 
the dull forenoon in slippers down at the heel and with dis- 
heveled hair, reading Ouida's last novel, and who, having 
dragged through a wretched forenoon and taken their 
afternoon sleep, and having passed an hour and a half at 
their toilet, pick up their card-case and go out to make 
calls, and who pass their evenings waiting for somebody to 
come in and break up the monotony. Arabella Stuart 
never was imprisoned in so dark a dungeon as that. 

There is no happiness in an idle woman. It may be 
with hand, it may be with brain, it may be with foot; but 
work she must, or be wretched forever. The little girls of 
our families must be smarted with that idea. 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 3 13 

The curse of American society is that our young women 
are taught that the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, 
seventh, tenth, fiftieth, thousandth thing in their life is to 
get somebody to take care of them. Instead of that, the 
first lesson should be how under God they may take care of 
themselves. The simple fact is that a majority of them 
do have to take care of themselves, and that, too, after 
having, through the false notions of their parents, wasted 
the years in which they ought to have learned how success- 
fully to maintain themselves. We now and here declare 
the inhumanity, cruelty, and outrage of that father and 
mother who pass their daughters into womanhood, having 
given them no facility for earning their livelihood. Ma- 
dame de Stael said: "It is not these writings that I am 
proud of, but the fact that I have facility in ten occupa- 
tions, in any one of which I could make a livelihood. " 
You say you have a fortune to leave them. Oh, man and 
woman, have you not learned that like vultures, like 
hawks, like eagles, riches have wings and fly away? 
Though you should be successful in leaving a competency 
behind you, the trickery of executors may swamp it in a 
night? or some officials in our churches may get up a min- 
ing company and induce your orphans to put their money 
into a hole in Colorado, and if by the most skillful 
machinery the sunken money can not be brought up 
again, prove to them that it was eternally decreed that 
that was the way they were to lose it, and that it went in 
the most orthodox and heavenly style. Oh, the damnable 
schemes that professed Christians will engage in until God 
puts His fingers into the collar of the hypocrite's robe aiid 



314 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

strips it clear down to the bottom! You have no right, 
because you are well off, to conclude that your children 
are going to be as well off. A man died leaving a large 
fortune. His son fell dead in a Philadelphia grog-shop. 
His old comrades came in and said as they bent over his 
corpse: "What is the matter with you, Boggsey?" The 
surgeon standing over him said : " Hush ye! He is dead!" 
" Oh, he is dead," they said. " Come, boys; let us go 
and take a drink in memory of poor Boggsey!" Have you 
nothing better than money to leave your children? If you 
have not, but send your daughters into the world with 
empty brain and unskilled hand, you are guilty of assas- 
sination, homicide, regicide, infanticide. 

There are women toiling in our cities for two and three 
dollars per week who were the daughters of merchant 
princes. These suffering ones now would be glad to have 
the crumbs that once fell from their fathers' table. That 
worn-out, broken shoe that she wears is the lineal descend- 
ant of the twelve-dollar gaiters in which her mother 
walked; and that torn and faded calico had ancestry of 
magnificent brocade that swept Broadway clean without 
any expense to the street commissioners. Though you live 
in an elegant residence and fare sumptuously every day, 
let your daughters feel it is a disgrace to them not to know 
how to work. I denounce the idea prevalent in society 
that, though our young women may embroider slippers 
and crochet and make mats for lamps to stand on without 
disgrace, the idea of doing anything for a livelihood is dis- 
honorable. It is a shame for a young woman belonging to 
a large family to be inefficient when the father toils his life 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 315 

away for her support. It is a shame for a daughter to be 
idle while her mother toils at the wash-tub. It is as hon- 
orable to sweep the house, make beds or trim hats as it is 
to twist a watch-chain. 

As far as I can understand, the line of respectability lies 
between that which is useful and that which is useless. If 
women do that which is of no value, their work is honor- 
able. If they do practical work, it is dishonorable. That 
our young women may escape the censure of doing dishon- 
orable work, I shall particularize. You may knit a tidy 
for the back of an arm-chair, but by no means make the 
money wherewith to buy the chair. You may with a deli- 
cate brush beautify a mantel ornament, but die rather than 
earn enough to buy a marble mantel. You may learn 
artistic music until you can squall Italian, but never sing 
" Ortonville " or " Old Hundred." Do nothing practical 
if you would in the eyes of refined society preserve your re- 
s]3ectability. I scout these fine notions. I tell you a 
woman, no more than a man, has a right to occupy a place 
in this world unless she pays a rent for it. 

In the course of a life-time you consume whole harvests 
and droves of cattle, and every day you live, breathe forty 
hogsheads of good, pure air. You must by some kind of 
usefulness pay for all this. Our race was the last thing 
created — the birds and fishes on the fourth day, the cattle 
and lizards on the fifth day, and man on the sixth day. If 
geologists are right, the earth was a million of years in the 
possession of the insects, beasts, and birds before our race 
came upon it. In one sense we were innovators. The 
cattle, the lizards, and the hawks had. pre-emption right. 



316 STEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

The question is not what we are to do with the lizards ana 
summer insects, hut what the lizards and summer insects 
are to do with us. If we want a place in this world, we 
must earn it. The j)artridge makes its own nest before it 
occupies it, The lark by its morning song earns its break- 
fast before it eats it, and the Bible gives an intimation that 
the first duty of an idler is to starve when it says: " If he 
will not work, neither shall he eat." Idleness ruins the 
health; and very soon nature says: " This man has refused 
to pay Iris rent, out with him!" Society is to be recon- 
structed on the subject of woman's toil. A vast majority 
of those who would have woman industrious shut her uj3 to 
a few kinds of work. My judgment in this matter is that 
a woman has a right to do anything that she can do well. 
There should be no department of merchandise, mechan- 
ism, art, or science barred against her. If Miss Hosmer 
has genius for sculpture, give her a chisel. If Rosa Bon- 
heur has a fondness for delineating animals, let her make 
"The Horse Fair." If Miss Mitchell will study astron- 
omy, let her mount the starry ladder. If Lydia will be a 
merchant, let her sell purple. If Lucretia Mott will 
preach the Gosj^el, let her thrill with her womanly elo- 
quence the Quaker meeting-house. 

It is said, If woman is given such opportunities she will 
occirpy places that might be taken by men. I say, If she 
have more skill and adaptedness for any position than a 
man has, let her have it! She has as much right to her 
bread, to her apparel, and to her home, as men have. But 
it is said that her nature is so delicate that she is unfitted for 
exhausting toil. I ask in the name of all past history 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 317 

what toil on earth is more severe, exhausting, and tremen- 
dous than that toil of the needle to which for ages she has 
been subjected? The battering-ram, the sword, the car- 
bine, the battle-ax, have made no such havoc as the needle. 
I would that these living sepulchers in which women have 
for ages been buried might be opened, and that some 
resurrection trumpet might bring up these living corpses 
to the fresh air and sunlight. 

Go with me and I will show you a woman who by hard- 
est toil supports her children, her drunken husband, her 
old father and mother, pays her house rent, always has 
wholesome food on her table, and when she can get some 
neighbor on the Sabbath to come in and take care of her 
family, appears in church with hat and cloak that are far 
from indicating the toil to which she is subjected. Such a 
woman as that has body and soul enough to fit her for any 
j^osition. She couid stand beside the majority of your 
salesmen and dispose of more goods. She coidd go into 
your wheelwright shops and beat one half of your work- 
men at making carriages. We talk about woman as 
though we had resigned to her all the light work, and our- 
selves had shouldered the heavier. But the day of judg- 
ment, which will reveal the sufferings of the stake and 
Inquisition, will marshal before the throne of God and the 
hierarchs of heaven the martyrs of wash-tub and needle. 
Now, I say if there be any preference in occupation, let 
women have it. God knows her trials are the severest. 
By her acuter sensitiveness to misfortune, by her hour of 
anguish, I demand that no one hedge up her jKatliway to a 
livelihood. Oh! the meanness, the despicability of men 



318 TOW TABEBXACLE SEEK. 

who begrudge a woman the right to work anywhere in any 
honorable calling! 

I go still further and say that woman should have equal 
compensation with men. By what principle of justice is it 
that women in many of our cities get only two thirds as 
much pay as men, and in many cases only half? Here is 
the gigantic injustice — that for work equally well, if not 
better , done, woman receives far less compensation than 
man. Start with the Xational Government Women 
clerks in Washington get nine hundred dollars for doing 
that for which men receive eighteen hundred dollars. The 
wheel of op]3ression is rolling over the necks of thousands 
of women who are at this moment in despair about what 
they are to do. Many of the largest mercantile establish- 
ments of our cities are accessory to these abominations, 
and from their large establishments there are scor-~ :: 
souls being pitched of into death, and their empl 
know it. Is there a God? Will there be a judgment I 
tell you. if God rises up to redress woman's wrongs, many 
of our large establishments will be swallowed up quicker 
than a South American earthquake ever took down a 
God will catch these oppressors between the two mill- 
stones of his wrath and grind them to powder. 

Why is it that a female principal in a school gets 
eight hundred and twenty-five dollars for doing work for 
which a male principal gets sixteen hundred and fifty dol- 
lars? I hear from all this land the wail of womanhood. 
Man has nothing to answer to that wail but flatteries. He 
says she is an angel. She is not. She knows she is not. 
She is a human being who gets hungry when she has no 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 319 

food, and cold when she has no fire. Give her no more 
flatteries; give her justice! There are sixty-five thousand 
sewing-girls in New York and Brooklyn. Across the sun- 
light conies their death groan. It is not such a cry as 
conies from those who are suddenly hurled out of life, but 
a slow, grinding, horrible wasting-away. Gather them be- 
fore you and look into their faces, pinched, ghastly, hun- 
ger-struck! Look at their fingers, needle-pricked and 
blood-tipped! See that premature stoop in the shoulders! 
Hear that dry, hacking, merciless cough! At a large 
meeting of these women held in a hall in Philadelphia, 
grand speeches were delivered, but a needle-woman took 
the stand, threw aside her faded shawl, and with her shriv- 
eled arm hurled a very thunder-bolt of eloquence, speaking 
out the horrors of her own experience. 

Stand at the corner of a street in New York at six or 
seven o' clock in the morning as the women go to work. 
Many of them had no breakfast except the crumbs that 
were left over from the night before, or the crumbs they 
chew on their way through the street. Here they come ! 
The working-girls of New York and Brooklyn. These 
engaged in head work, these in flower-making, in milli- 
nery, in paper-box making; but, most overworked of all 
and least compensated, the sewing-women. Why do they 
not take the city cars on their way up? They can not 
afford the five cents. If, concluding to deny herself some- 
thing else, she gets into the car, give her a seat. You 
want to see how Latimer and Eidley appeared in the fire. 
Look at that woman and behold a more horrible martyr- 
dom, a hotter fire, a more agonizing death. Ask that worn- 



320 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

an how much she gets for her work, and she will tell you six 
cents for making coarse shirts and find her own thread. 

Years ago, one Sabbath night in the vestibule of this 
church, after service, a woman fell in convulsions. The 
doctor said she needed medicine not so much as something 
to eat. As she began to revive, in her delirium she said, 
gaspingly: " Eight cents! Eight cents! Eight cents! I 
wish I could get it done, I am so tired. I wish I could get 
some sleep, but I must get it done. Eight cents! Eight 
cents! Eight cents !" We found afterward that she was 
making garments for eight cents apiece, and that she could 
make but three of them in a day. Hear it! Three times 
eight are twenty-four. Hear it, men and women who have 
comfortable homes! Some of the worst villains of our 
cities are the employers of these women. They beat them 
down to the last penny and try to cheat them out of that. 
The woman must deposit a dollar or two before she gets 
the garments to work on. When the work is done it is 
sharply inspected, the most insignificant flaws picked out, 
and the wages refused and sometimes the dollar deposited 
not given back. The Women's Protective Union reports 
a case where one of the poor souls, finding a place where she 
coidd get more wages, resolved to change employers, and 
went to get her pay for work done. The employer says: 
" I hear you are going to leave me?" " Yes," she said, 
" and I have come to get what you owe me." He made no 
answer. She said : ' 'Are you not going to pay me ?" ' ' Yes," 
he said, " I will pay you," and he kicked her down-stairs. 

Oh, that Women's Protective Union, 19 Clinton Place, 
$ew York! The blessings of Heaven be on it for the mer- 



DESFOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 321 

ciful and divine work it is doing in the defense of toiling 
womanhood! What tragedies of suffering are presented to 
them day by day! A paragraph from their report: 
" ' Can you make Mr. Jones pay me? He owes me for 
three weeks at $2.50 a week, and I can't get anything, and 
my child is very sick!' The speaker, a young woman 
lately widowed, burst into a flood of tears as she spoke. 
She was bidden to come again the next afternoon and re- 
peat her story to the attorney at his usual weekly hearing 
of frauds and impositions. Means were found by which 
Mr. Jones was induced to pay the 87.50." 

Another paragraph from their report: "A fortnight 
had passed, when she modestly hinted a desire to know how 
much her services were worth. ' Oh, my dear/ he re- 
plied, { you are getting to be one of the most valuable 
hands in the trade; you will always get the very best price. 
Ten dollars a week you will be able to earn very easily. ' 
And the girl's fingers flew on with her work at a marvel- 
ous rate. The picture of 810 a week had almost turned 
her head. A few nights later, while crossing the ferry, 
she overheard the name of her employer in the conversa- 
tion of girls who stood near: ' What, John Snipes? Why, 
he don't pay! Look out for him every time. He'll keep 
you on trial, as he calls it, for weeks, and then he'll let 
you go, and get some other fool!' And thus Jane Smith 
gained her warning against the swindler. But the Union 
held him in the toils of the law until he paid the worth of 
each of those days of ' trial.' " 

Another paragraph: " Her mortification may be im- 
agined when told that one of the two five-dollar bills which 



322 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

she had just received for her work was counterfeit. But 
her mortification was swallowed up in indignation when 
her employer denied having" paid her the money, and in- 
sultingly asked her to prove it. "When the Protective 
Union had placed this matter in the courts, the judge said: 
1 You will pay Eleanor the amount of her claim, $5.83, 
and also the costs of the court/ " 

How are these evils to be eradicated? Some say: " Give 
woman the ballot." What eifect such ballot might have 
on other questions I am not here to discuss; but what 
would be the effect of female suffrage on women's wages? 
I do not believe that woman will ever get justice by 
woman's ballot. Indeed, women opj)ress women as much 
as men do. Do not women, as much as men, beat down 
to the lowest figure the woman who sews for them? Are 
not women as sharp as men on washer-women and mil- 
liners and mantua makers? If a woman asks a dollar for 
her work, does not her female employer ask her if she will 
not take ninety cents? You say, " Only ten cents differ- 
ence." But that is sometimes the difference between 
heaven and hell. Women often have less commiseration 
for women than men. If a woman stejjs aside from the 
path of rectitude, man may forgive — woman never! 
Woman will never get justice done her from woman's bal- 
lot. Neither will she get it from man's ballot. How 
then ? God will rise up for her. God has more resources 
than we know of. The flaming sword that hung at Eden's 
gate when woman was driven out will cleave with its terri- 
ble edge her oppressors. 

13 ut there is something for women to do. Let young 



DESPOTISM OF THE NEEDLE. 323 

peojjle prepare to excel in spheres of work, and they will he 
able after awhile to get larger wages. Unskilled and incom- 
petent labor must take what is given: skilled and com- 
petent labor will eventually make its own standard. Ad- 
mitting that the law of supply and demand regulates these 
things, I contend that the demand for skilled labor is very 
great and the supply very small. Start with the idea that 
work is honorable, and that you can do some one thing bet- 
ter than anybody else. Resolve that, God helping, you 
will take care of yourself. If you are after awhile called 
into another relation you will all the better be qualified for 
it by your spirit of self-reliance, or if you are called to stay 
as you are, you can be happy and self-supporting. 

Poets are fond of talking about man as an oak and 
woman the vine that climbs it; but I have seen many a 
tree fall that not only went down itself, but took all the 
vines with it. I can tell you of something stronger than 
an oak for an ivy to climb on, and that is the throne of 
the great Jehovah. Single or affianced, that woman is 
strong who leans on God and does her best. Many of you 
will go single-handed through life, and you will have to 
choose between two characters. Young woman, I am sure 
you will turn your back upon the useless, giggling, irre- 
sponsible nonentity which society ignominiously acknowl- 
edges to be a woman, and ask God to make you an hum- 
ble, active, earnest Christian. What will become of that 
womanly disciple of the world? She is more thoughtful of 
the attitude she strikes upon the carpet than how she will 
look in the judgment; more worried about her freckles 
than her sins; more interested in her apparel than in her 



384 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

redemption. The dying actress whose life had been vicious 
said: " The scene closes — draw the curtain." Generally 
the tragedy comes first and the farce afterward; but in her 
life it was first the farce of a useless life and then the 
tragedy of a wretched eternity. 

Compare the life and death of such a one with that of 
some Christian aunt that was once a blessing to your 
household. I do not know that she was ever asked to give 
her hand in marriage. She lived single, that, untraranieled, 
she might be everybody's blessing. Whenever the sick 
were to be visited or the poor to be provided with bread 
she went with a blessing. She could pray or sing " Kock 
of Ages 9> for any sick pauper who asked her. As she got 
older there were many days when she was a little sharp, 
but for the most part auntie was a sunbeam — just the one 
for Christmas Eve. She knew better than any one else 
how to fix things. Her every prayer, as God heard it, was 
full of everybody who had trouble. The brightest things 
in all the house dropped from her fingers. She had pecul- 
iar notions, but the grandest notion she ever had was to 
make you happy. She dressed well — auntie always dressed 
well; but her highest adornment was that of a meek and 
quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price. 
When she died you all gathered lovingly about her; and as 
you carried her out to rest, the Sunday-school class almost 
covered the coffin with japonicas; and the poor people 
stood at the end of the alley, with their aprons to their eyes, 
sobbing bitterly, and the man of the world said, with Solo- 
mon: " Her price was above rubies;" and Jesus, as unto the 
maiden in Judea, commanded, " I say unto thee, Arise!" 



TOBACCO AND OPIUM. 



" Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed." — Gen. 
i: 11. 

The two first born of our earth were the grass-blade 
and the herb. They preceded the brute creation and the 
human family — the grass for the animal creation, the herb 
for human service. The cattle came and took possession of 
their inheritance, the grass-blade; man came and took 
possession of his inheritance, the herb. "We have the herb 
for food as in case of hunger, for narcotic as in case of in- 
somnia, for anodyne as in case of paroxysm, for stimulant 
as when the pulses flag under the weight of disease. The 
caterer comes and takes the herb and presents it in all 
styles of delicacy. The physician comes and takes the 
herb and compounds it for physical recuperation. Mill- 
ions of people come and take the herb for ruinous phys- 
ical and intellectual delectation. The herb, which was 
divinely created, and for good purposes, has often been 
degraded for bad results. There is a useful and a baneful 
employment of the herbaceous kingdom. 

There sprung up in Yucatan of this continent an herb 
that has bewitched the world. In the fifteenth century it 
crossed the Atlantic Ocean and captured Spain. After- 
ward it captured Portugal. Then the French embassadors 

(325) 



32(3 NEW TABEBtfACLE SEBMONS. 

took it to Paris, and it cajotured the French Empire. 
Then Walter Baleigh took it to London, and it captured 
Great Britain. Nicotiana, ascribed to that genus by the 
botanists, but we all know it is the exhilarating, eleva- 
ting, emparadising, nerve-shattering, dyspepsia-breeding, 
health-destrojnng tobacco. I shall not in my remarks be 
offensively personal, because you all use it, or nearly all! 
I know by experience how it soothes and roseates the world, 
and kindles sociality, and I also know some of its baleful 
results. I was its slave, and by the grace of God I have 
become its conqueror. Tens of thousands of people have 
been asking the question during the past two months, ask- 
ing it with great pathos and great earnestness: " Does the 
use of tobacco produce cancerous and other troubles?" I 
shall not answer the question in regard to any particular 
case, but shall deal with the subject in a more general 
way. 

You say to me, " Did God not create tobacco?" Yes. 
You say to me, " Is not God good?" Yes. Well, then, 
you say, " If God is good and he created tobacco, He must 
have created it for some good purpose." Yes, your logic 
is complete. But God created the common sense at the 
same time, by which we are to know how to use a poison 
and how not to use it. God created that just as He created 
henbane and nux vomica and copperas and belladonna and 
all other poisons, whether directly created by Himself or 
extracted by man. 

That it is a j)oison no man of common sense will deny. 
A case was reported where a little child lay upon its moth- 
er's lap and one drop fell from a pipe to the child's lij), 



TOBACCO AND OPIUM. 327 

and it went into convulsions and into death. But you 
say, " Haven't people lived on in comjriete use of it to old 
age?" Oil, yes; just as I have seen inebriates seventy 
years old. In Boston, years ago, there was a meeting in 
which there were several centenarians, and they were giv- 
ing their experience, and one centenarian said that he had 
lived over a hundred years, and that he ascribed it to the 
fact that he had refrained from the use of intoxicating 
liquors. Eight after him another centenarian said he had 
lived over a hundred years, and he ascribed it to the fact 
that for the last fifty years he had hardly seen a sober mo- 
ment. It is an amazing tiling how many outrages men 
may commit upon their physical system and yet live on. 
In the case of the man of the jug he lived on because his 
body was pickled. In the case of the man of the pipe, he 
lived on because his body turned into smoked liver! 

But are there no truths to be uttered in regard to this 
great evil? What is the advice to be given to the multi- 
tude of young people who hear me this day? What is the 
advice you are going to give to your children? 

First of all, we must advise them to abstain from the 
use of tobacco because all the medical fraternity of the 
United States and Great Britain agree in ascribing to this 
habit terrific unhealth. The men whose life-time work is 
the study of the science of health say so, and shall I set up 
my opinion against theirs? Dr. Agnew, Dr. Olcott, Dr. 
Barnes, Dr. Rush, Dr. Mott, Dr. Harvey, Dr. Hosack — 
all the doctors, allojiathic, homeopathic, hydropathic, 
eclectic, denounce the habit as a matter of unhealth. A 
distiu guished physician declared he considered the use of 



328 NEW TABEfiNACLE SERMONS. 

tobacco caused seventy different styles of disease, and Le 
says: " Of all tlie cases of cancer in the mouth that hare 
come under my observation, almost in every case it has 
been ascribed to tobacco.'-' 

The united testimony of all physicians is that it depresses 
the nervous system,, that it takes away twenty-five per 
cent, of the physical vigor of this generation, and that it 
goes on as the years multiply and. damaging this genera- 
tion with accumulated curse, it strikes other centuries. 
And if it is go deleterious to the body, how much more de- 
structive to the mind. An eminent 2^>hysician, who was 
the superintendent of the insane asylum at Northampton, 
Massachusetts, says: " Fully one half the patients we get 
in our asylum have lost their intellect through the use of 
tobacco.'' If it is such a bad thing to injure the body, 
what a bad thing, what a worse thing it is to injure the 
mind, and any man of common sense knows that tobacco 
attacks the nervous system, and everybody knows that the 
nervous system attacks the mind. 

Besides that, all reformers will tell you that the use of 
tobacco creates an unnatural thirst, and it is the cause of 
drunkenness in America to-day more than anything else. 
In all cases where you find men taking strong drink you 
find they use tobacco. There are men who use tobacco 
who do not take strong drink, but all who use strong drink 
use tobacco, and that shows beyond controversy there is an 
affinity between the two products. There are reformers 
here to-day who will testify to you it is inrpossible for a 
man to reform from taking strong drink until he quits 
tobacco. In many of the cases where men have been re- 



TOBACCO AND OPIUM. 329 

formed from strong drink and have gone back to their 
cnps, they have testified that they first touched tobacco 
and then they surrendered to intoxicants. 

I say in the presence of this assemblage to-day, in which 
there are many physicians — and they know that what I say 
is true on the subject — that the pathway to the drunk- 
ard 5 s grave and the drunkard 5 s hell is strewn thick with 
tobacco-leaves. What has been the testimony on this sub- 
ject? Is this a mere statement of a preacher whose busi- 
ness it is to talk morals, or is the testimony of the world 
just as emphatic? What did Benjamin Franklin say? " I 
never saw a well man in the exercise of common sense who 
would say that tobacco did him any good. 55 What did 
Thomas Jefferson say? Certainly he is good authority. 
He says in regard to the culture of tobacco, " It is a cult- 
ure productive of infinite wretchdness. 55 What did Hor- 
ace Greeley say of it? " It is a profane stench. 55 What 
did Daniel Webster say of it? "If those men must smoke, 
let them take the horse-shed! 55 One reason why the habit 
goes on from destruction to destruction is that so many 
ministers of the gospel take it. They smoke themselves 
into bronchitis, and then the dear people have to send 
them to Europe to get them restored from exhausting 
religious services! They smoke until the nervous system 
is shattered. They smoke themselves to death. I could 
mention the names of five distinguished clergymen who 
died of cancer of the mouth, and the doctor said, in every 
ease, it was the result of tobacco. The tombstone of 
many a minister of religion has been covered all over with 
Handsome eulogy, when, if the true epitaph had been writ- 



330 NEW TABEENACLE SERMONS. 

ten, it would have said: " Here lies a man killed by too 
much cavendish!" They smoke until the world is blue, 
and their theology is blue, and everything is blue. How 
can a man stand in the pulpit and preach on the subject of 
temperance when he is indulging such a habit as that? I 
have seen a cuspadore in a pulpit into which the holy man 
dropped his cud before he got up to read about " blessed 
are the pure in heart/* and to read about the rolling of 
sin as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and to read about 
the unclean animals in Leviticus that chewed the cud. 

About sixty-five years ago a student at Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary graduated into the ministiy. He had an 
eloquence and a magnetism which sent him to the front. 
Nothing could stand before him. But in a few months he 
was put in an insane asylum, and the jihysician said 
tobacco was the cause of the disaster. It was the custom 
in those days to give a portion of tobacco to every patient 
in the asylum. Nearly twenty years passed along, and 
that man was walking the floor of his cell in the asylum, 
when his reason returned, and he saw the situation, and he 
took the tobacco from his mouth and threw it against the 
iron gate of the place in which he was confined, and he 
said: " What brought me here? What keeps me here? 
Tobacco! tobacco! God forgive me, God help me, and I 
will never use it again." He was fully restored to reason, 
came forth, preached the Gospel of Christ for some ten 
years, and then went into everlasting blessedness. 

There are ministers of religion now in this country who 
are dying by inches, and they do not know what is the 
matter with them. They are being killed by tobacco. 



TOBACCO AND OPIUM. 331 

They are despoiling their influence through tobacco. 
They are malodorous with tobacco. I could give one para- 
graph of history, and that would be my own experience. 
It took ten cigars to make one sermon, and I got very 
nervous, and I awakened one day to see what an outrage I 
was committing upon my health by the use of tobacco. I 
was about to change settlement, and a generous tobacco- 
nist of Philadelphia told me if I would come to Philadelphia 
and be his pastor he would give me all the cigars I wanted 
for nothing all the rest of my life. I halted. I said to 
myself, " If I smoke more than I ought to now in these 
war times, and when my salary is small, what would I do 
if I had gratuitous and unlimited supply?" Then and 
there, twenty-four years ago, I quit once and forever. It 
made a new man of me. Much of the time the world 
looked blue before that, because I was looking through 
tobacco smoke. Ever since the world has been full of 
sunshine, and though I have done as much work as any 
one of my age, God has blessed me, it seems to me, with 
the best health that a man ever had. 

I say that no minister of religion can afford to smoke. 
Put in my hand all the money expended by Christian men 
in Brooklyn for tobacco, and I will support three orphan 
asylums as well and as grandly as the three great orphan 
asylums already established. Put into my hand the money 
spent by the Christians of America for tobacco, and I will 
clothe, shelter, and feed all the suffering poor of the con- 
tinent. The American Church gives a million dollars a 
year for the salvation of the heathen, and American Chris- 
tians smoke five million dollars' worth of tobacco. 



332 NEW TABERNACLE SERMON'S. 

I stand here to-day in the presence of a vast multitude 
of young people who are forming their habits. Between 
seventeen and twenty-five years of age a great many young 
men get on them habits in the use of tobacco that they 
never get over. Let me say to all my young friends,, you 
can not afford to smoke, you can not afford to chew. You 
either take very good tobacco, or you take very cheap 
tobacco. If it is cheap, I will tell you why it is cheap. It 
is made of burdock, and lampblack, and sawdust, and 
colt's-foot, and plantain leaves, and fuller's earth, and 
salt, and alum, and lime, and a little tobacco, and you can 
not afford to put such a mess as that in your mouth. But 
if you use expensive tobacco, do you not think it would be 
better for you to take that amount of money which you are 
now expending for this herb, and which you will expend 
during the course of your' life if you keep the habit up, 
and with it buy a splendid farm and make the afternoon 
and the evening of your life comfortable? 

There are young men whose life is going out inch by 
inch from cigarettes. Now, do you not think it would be 
well for you to listen to the testimony of a merchant of 
New York, who said this: "In early life I smoked six 
cigars a day at six and a half cents each. They averaged 
that. I thought to myself one day, I'll just put aside all I 
consume in cigars and all I would consume if I kee}) on in 
the habit, and I'll see what it will come to by compound 
interest." And he gives this tremendous statistic : "Last 
July completed thirty-nine years since, by the grace of 
God, I was emancipated from the filthy habit, and tne sav- 
ing amounted to the enormous sum of &29,102.03 by com- 



TOBACCO AND OPIUM. 3,33 

\ 

pound interest. We lived in the city, but the children, 
who had learned something of the enjoyment of country 
life from their annual visits to their grandparents, longed 
for a home among the green fields. I found a very pleas- 
ant place in the country for sale. The cigar money came 
into requisition, and I found it amounted to a sufficient 
sum to purchase the place, and it is mine. Now, boys, 
you take your choice. Smoking without a home, or a 
home without smoking." This is common sense as well 
as religion. 

I must say a word to my friends who smoke the best to- 
bacco, and who could stop at any time. What is your Chris- 
tian influence in this respect? What is your influence 
upon young men? Do you not think it would be better 
for you to exercise a little self-denial! People wondered 
why George Briggs, Governor of Massachusetts, wore a 
cravat but no collar. " Oh," they said, M it is an absurd 
eccentricity." This was the history of the cravat without 
any collar: For many years before he had been talking 
with an inebriate, trying to persuade him to give up the 
habit of drinking and he said to the inebriate, " Your 
habit is entirely unnecessary." "Ah!" replied the ine- 
briate, " we do a great many things that are not necessary. 
It isn't necessary that you should have that collar." 
" Well," said Mr. Briggs, " I'll never wear a collar again 
if you will stop drinking." " Agreed," said the other. 
They joined hands in a pledge that they kept for twenty 
years — kept until death. That is magnificent. That is 
Gospel, practical Gospel, worthy of George Briggs, worthy 
of you. Self-denial for others. Subtraction from our ad- 



13 k 



NEW TABEKNACLE SEBMONS. 



vantage that there may be an addition to somebody else's 
advantage. 

But what I have said has been chiefly appropriate for 
men. Now my subject widens and shall be appropriate 
for both sexes. In all ages of the world there has been a 
search for some herb or flower that would stimulate 
lethargy and compose grief. Among the ancient Greeks 
and Egyptians they found something they called nej)enthe, 
and the Theban women knew how to compound it. If a 
person should chew a few of those leaves his grief would 
be immediately whelmed with hilarity. Nepenthe passed 
out from the consideration of the world and then came 
hasheesh, which is from the Indian hemp. It is manu- 
factured from the flowers at the toj). The workman with 
leathern apparel walks through the field and the exu- 
dation of the plants adheres to the leathern garments, 
and then the man comes out and scrapes off: this exuda- 
tion, and it is mixed with aromatics and becomes an in- 
toxicant that has brutalized whole nations. Its first effect 
is sight, spectacle glorious and grand beyond all descrip- 
tion, but afterward it pulls down body, mind, and soul 
into anguish. 

I knew one of the most brilliant men of our time. His 
appearance in a newspaper column, or a book, or a maga- 
zine was an enchantment. In the course of a half hour he 
could produce more wit and more valuable information 
than any man I ever heard talk. But he chewed hash- 
eesh. He first took it out of curiosity to see whether the 
power said to be attached really existed. He took it. He 
got under the power of it. He tried to break loose. He 



TOBACCO AXD OPIUM. 335 

put his hand in the cockatrice's den to see whether it 
would bite, and he found out to his own undoing. His 
friends gathered around and tried to save him, but he 
could not be saved. The father, a minister of the Gospel, 
prayed with him and counseled him, and out of a compara- 
tively small salary enrployed the first medical advice of 
Xew York, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, Paris, London, and 
Berlin, for he was his only son. No help came. First his 
body gave way in pangs and convulsions of suffering. 
Then his mind gave way and he became a raving maniac. 
Then his soul went out blaspheming God into a starless 
eternity. He died at thirty years of age. Behold the 
work of accursed hasheesh. 

But I must put my emphasis upon the use of opium. It 
is made from the white poppy. It is not a new discovery. 
Three hundred years before Christ we read of it; but it 
was not until the seventh century that it took up its march 
of death, and, passing out of the curative and the medi- 
cinal, through smoking and mastication it has become the 
curse of nations. In 1861 there were imported into this 
country one hundred and seven thousand pounds of 
ojjiuni. In 1880, nineteen years after, there were im- 
ported five hundred and thirty thousand pounds of opium. 
In 1876 there were in tins country two hundred and 
twenty-five thousand ojnum-consumers. Xow, it is esti- 
mated there are in the United States to-day six hundred 
thousand victims of opium. It is appalling. 

We do not know why some families do not get on. 
There is something mysterious about them. The opium 
habit is so stealthy, it is so deceitful, and it is so deathful, 



336 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

you can cure a hundred men of strong drink where you can 
cure one opium-eater. 

I have knelt down in this very church by those who were 
elegant in apparel, and elegant in appearance, and from 
the depths of their souls and from the depths of my soul, 
we cried out for God's rescue. Somehow it did not come. 
In many a household only the physician and pastor know 
it — the physician called in for physical relief, the pastor 
called in for spiritual relief, and they both fail. The 
physician confesses his defeat, the minister of religion 
confesses his defeat, for somehow God does not seem 
to hear a prayer offered for an opium-eater. His 
grace is infinite, and I have been told there are cases of 
reformation. I never saw one. I say this not to wound 
the feelings of any who may feel this awful grip, but to 
utter a potent warning that you stand back from that gate 
of hell. Oh, man, oh, woman, tampering with this great 
evil, have you fallen back on this as a permanent resource 
because of some physical distress or mental anguish? Bet- 
ter stop. The ecstasies do not pay for the horrors. The 
Paradise is followed too soon by the Pandemonium. Mor- 
phia, a blessing of God for the relief of sudden pang and 
of acute dementia, misappropriated and never intended for 
permanent use. 

It is not merely the barbaric fanatics that are taken 
down by it. Did you ever read De Quincey's " Confessions 
of an Opium-Eater?" He says that during the first ten years 
the habit handed to him all the keys of Paradise, but it 
would take something as mighty as De Quincey's pen to 
describe the consequent horrors. There is nothing that I 



TOBACCO AO OPIUM. 337 

have ever read about the tortures of the damned that seemed 
more horrible than those which De Quincey says he 
suffered. Samuel Taylor Coleridge first conquered the 
world with his exquisite pen, and then was conquered by 
opium. The most brilliant, the most eloquent lawyer of 
the nineteenth century went down under its power, and 
there is a vast multitude of men and women — but more 
women than men — who are going into the dungeon of 
that awful incarceration. 

The worst thing about it is, it takes advantage of one's 
weakness. De Quincey says: " I got to be an opium- 
eater on account of my rheumatism." Coleridge says: 
" I got to be an opium-eater on account of my sleepless- 
ness." For what are you taking it? For God's sake do not 
take it long. The wealthiest, the grandest families going 
down under its power. Twenty-five thousand victims of 
opium in Chicago. Twenty-five thousand victims of 
opium in St. Louis, and, according to that average, 
seventy-five thousand victims of opium in New York and 
Brooklyn. 

The clerk of a drug store says: " I can tell them when 
they come in; there is something about their complexion, 
something about their manner, something about the look 
of their eyes that shows they are victims." Some in the 
struggle to get away from it try chloral. Whole tons of 
chloral manufactured in Germany eveiy year. Baron Lie- 
big says he knows one chemist in Germany w T ho manufact- 
ures a half ton of chloral every week. Beware of hydrate 
of chloral. It is coming on with mighty tread to curse 
these cities. But I am chiefly under this head speaking of 



338 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

the morphine. The devil of morphia is going to be in this 
country, in my opinion, mightier than the devil of alcohol. 
By the power of the Christian pulpit, by the power of the 
Christianized printing-press, by the power of the Lord God 
Almighty, all these evils are going to be extirpated — all, 
all, and you have a work in regard to that, and I have a , 

i 

work. But what we do we had better do right away. * 
The clock ticks now, and we hear it; after awhile the 
clock will tick and we will not hear it. 

I sat at a country fireside, and I saw the fire kindle and 
blaze, and go out. I sat long enough at that fireside to 
get a good many practical reflections, and I said: " That 
is like human life, that fire on the hearth." We put on 
the fagots and they blaze up, and out, and on, and the 
whole room is filled with the light, gay of sparkle, gay of 
flash, gay of crackle. Emblem of boyhood. Now the 
fire intensifies. Now the flame reddens into coals. Now 
the heat is becoming more and more intense, and the more 
it is stirred the redder is the coal. Now with one sweep of 
flame it cleaves the way, and all the hearth glows with the 
intensity. Emblem of full manhood. Now the coals be- 
gin to whiten. Now the heat lessens. Now the flickering 
shadows die along the wall. Now the fagots fall apart. 
Now the household hover over the expiring embers. Now 
the last breath of smoke is lost in the chimney. The fire 
is out. Shovel up the white remains. Ashes! Ashes! 



WHY ARE SATAN AND SIN 
PERMITTED ? 



" Wherefore do the wicked live?" — Job xxi: 7, 

Pooe Job! With tusks and horns and hoofs and stings, 
all the misfortunes of life seemed to come upon him at 
once. Bankruptcy, bereavement, scandalization, and 
eruptive disease so irritating that he had to re-enforce his 
ten finger-nails with pieces of earthenware to scratch him- 
self withal. His wife took the diagnosis of his complaints 
and prescribed profanity. She thought he would feel 
better if between the paroxysms of grief and pain he would 
swear a little. For each boil a plaster of objurgation. 

Probably no man was ever more tempted to take the 
bad advice than when, at last, Job's three exasperating 
friends came in, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad, practically 
saying to him, " You old sinner, serves you right; you are 
a hypocrite; what a sight you are! God has sent these 
chastisements for your wickedness." 

The disfigured invalid, putting down the pieces of 
broken saucer with which he had been rubbing his arms, 
with swollen eyelids looks up and says to his garrulous 
friends in substance, " The most wicked people some- 
times have the best health and are the most prospered/* 
and then in that connection hurls the question which every 

(339) 



340 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

man and woman has asked in some juncture of affairs, 
" Wherefore do the wicked live?" 

They build up fortunes that overshadow the earth. 
They confound all the life-insurance tables on the subject 
of longevity, dying octogenarians, perhaps nonagenarians, 
possibly centenarians. Ahab in the palace, Naboth in the 
cabinet. Unclean Herod on the throne, consecrated Paul 
twisting ropes for tent-making. Manasseh, the worst of 
all the kings of Juda, living longer than any of them. 
While the general rule is the wicked do not live out half 
their days, there are exceptions where they live on to great 
age and in a Paradise of beauty and luxuriance, and die 
with a whole college of physicians expending its skill in 
trying further prolongation of life, and have a funeral 
with casket under mountain of calla-lilies, the finest 
equipages of the city jingling and flashing into line, the 
poor, angle-worm of the dust carried out to its hole in the 
ground with the pomp that might make a spirit from some 
other world suppose that the Archangel Michael was dead. 

Go up among the finest residences of the city, and on 
some of the door-plates you will find the names of those 
mightiest for commercial and social iniquity. They are 
the vampires of society — they are the gorgons of the cent- 
ury. Some of these men have each wheel of their carriage 
a juggernaut wet with the blood of those sacrified to their 
avarice. Some of them are like Caligula, who wished that 
all the people had only one neck that he might strike it on 2 
at one blow. Oh, the slain, the slain ! A long procession of 
usurers and libertines and infamous quacks and legal- 
charlatans and world-grabbing monsters. What apostle- 



WHY ARE SATAN" AND SIN PERMITTED ? 341 

ship of despoliation! Demons incarnate. Hundreds of 
men concentering all their energies of body, mind, and 
soul in one prolonged, ever-intensifying, and unrelenting 
effort to scald and scarify and blast and consume the 
world. I do not blame you for asking me the quivering, 
throbbing, burning, resounding, appalling question of my 
text, " Wherefore do the wicked live?" 

In the first place, they live to demonstrate beyond all 
controversy the long-suffering patience of God. You 
sometimes say, under some great affront, " I will not stand 
it;" but perhaps you are compelled to stand it. God, 
with all the batteries of omnipotence loaded with thunder- 
bolts, stands it century after century. I have no doubt 
sometimes an angel comes to Him and suggests, " Now is 
the time to strike." "No," says God; "wait a year, 
wait twenty years, wait a century, wait five centuries." 
What God does is not so wonderful as what He does not 
do. He has the reserve corps with which He could strike 
Mormonism and Mohammedanism and Paganism from 
the earth in a day. He could take all the fraud in New 
York on the west side of Broadway and hurl it into the 
Hudson, and all the fraud on the east side of Broadway 
and hurl it into the East River in an hour. He under- 
stands the combination lock of every dishonest money-safe, 
and could blow it up quicker than by any earthly explo- 
sive. Written all over the earth, written all over history 
are the words, " Divine forbearance, divine leniency, 
divine long-suffering/'* 

I wonder that God did not burn this world up two thou- 
sand years ago, scattering its ashes into immensity, its 



342 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

aerolites dropping into other worlds to be kept in their 
museums as specimens of a defunct planet. People some- 
times talk of God as though He were hasty in His judg- 
ments and as though He snapped men up quick. Oh, no! 
He waited one hundred and twenty years for the people to 
get into the ark, and warned them all the time — one hun- 
dred and twenty years, then the flood came. The Anchor 
Line gives only a month's announcement of the sailing of 
the " Circassia," the White Star Line gives only a month's 
announcement of the sailing of the "Britannic/' the Ounard 
Line gives only a month's announcement of the sailing of 
the " Oregon;" but of the sailing of that ship that Noah 
commanded God gave one hundred and twenty years' an- 
nouncement and warning. Patience antediluvian, patience 
postdiluvian, patience in times Adamic, Abrahamic, 
Mosaic, Davidic, Pauline, Lutheran, Whitefieldian. 
Patience with men and nations. Patience with barbarisms 
and civilizations. Six thousand years of patience ! Over- 
topping attribute of God, all of whose attributes are im- 
measurable. Why do the wicked live? That their over- 
throw may be the more impressive and climacteric. They 
must pile up their mischief until all the community shall 
see it, until the nation shall see it, until all the world shall 
see it. The higher it goes up the harder it will come down 
and the grander will be the divine vindication. 

God will not allow sin to sneak out of the world. God 
will not allow it merely to resign and quit. This shall not 
be a case that goes by default because no one appears 
against it. God will arraign it, handcuff it, try it, bring 
against it the verdict of all the good, and then gibbet it so 



WHY ARE SATAX AND SIX PERMITTED ? 343 

high up that if one half of the gibbet stood on Mount 
Washington and the other on the Himalaya, it would not 
be any more conspicuous. 

About fifteen years ago we had in this country a most 
illustrious instance of how God lets a man go on in 
iniquity, so that at the close of the career his overthrow 
may be the more impressive, full of warning and climac- 
teric. First, an honest chairmaker, then an alderman, 
then a member of congress, then a supervisor of a city, 
then school commissioner, then state senator, then com- 
missioner of public works — on and up, stealing thousands 
of dollars here and thousands of dollars there, until the 
malfeasance in office overtopped anything the world had 
ever seen — making the new Court House in New York a 
monument of municipal crime, and rushing the debt of 
the city from thirty-six million dollars to ninety-seven mill- 
ions. Now, he is at the top of millionairedom. 

Country-seat terraced and arbored and parterred clear to 
the water's brink. Horses enough to stock a king's 
equerry. Grooms and postilions in full rig. Wine cellars 
enough to make a whole legislature drunk. New York 
finances and New York politics in his vest pocket. He 
winked, and men in high place fell. He lifted his little 
finger, and ignoramuses took inrportant office. He whis- 
pered, and in Albany and Washington they said it thun- 
dered. Wider and mightier and more baleful his influ- 
ence, until it seemed as if Pandemonium was to be 
adjourned to this world, and in the Satanic realm there was 
to be a change of administration, and Apollyon, who had 
held dominion so long, should have a successful competitor. 



344 NEW ^ABEftNACLk SEkMONg. 

To bring all to a climax, a wedding came in the house 
of that man. Diamonds as large as hickory nuts. A pin 
of sixty diamonds representing sheaves of wheat. 
Musicians in a semicircle, half -hidden by a great harp 
of flowers. Ships of flowers. Forty silver sets, one of 
them with two hundred and forty pieces. One wedding- 
dress that cost five thousand dollars. A famous libertine, 
who owned several Long Island Sound steamboats, and 
not long before he was shot for his crimes, sent as a wed- 
ding present to that house a frosted silver iceberg, with rep- 
resentations of arctic bears walking on icicle-handles and 
ascending the spoons. Was there ever such a convocation 
of pictures, bronzes, of bric-a-brac, of grandeurs, social 
grandeurs? The highest wave of New York splendor 
rolled into that house and recoiled perhaps never again to 
rise so high. But just at that time, when all earthly and 
infernal observation was concentered on that man, eternal 
justice, imjjersonated by that wonder of the American bar, 
Charles 0' Connor, got on the track of the offender. First 
arraignment, then sentence to twelve years' imprisonment 
under twelve indictments, then penitentiary on Black- 
welFs Island, then a lawsuit against him for six million 
dollars, then incarceration in Ludlow Street jail, then 
escape to foreign land, to be brought back under the stout 
grip of the constabulary, then dying of broken heart in a 
prison cell. God allowed him to go on in iniquity until 
all the world saw as never before that " the way of the 
transgressor is hard," and that dishonesty will not declare 
permanent dividends, and that you had better be an 
honest chairmaker with a day's wages at a time than a 



WHY ARE SATAN AND SIN PERMITTED? o45 

brilliant commissioner of public works, all your pockets 
crammed with plunder. 

What a brilliant figure in history is William the Con- 
queror, the intimidator of France, of Anjou, of Brittany, 
victor at Hastings, snatching the crown of England and 
setting it on his own brow, destroying homesteads that he 
might have a larger game forest, making a Doomsday 
Book by which he could keep the whole land under des- 
potic espionage, proclaiming war in revenge for a joke 
uttered in regard to his obesity. Harvest fields and vine- 
yards going down under the cavalry hoof. Nations horror- 
struck. But one day while at the apex of all observation 
he is riding out and the horse put his hoof on a hot cinder, 
throwing the king so violently against the pommel of the 
saddle that he dies, his son hastening to England to get 
the crown before the breath has left his father's body. 

The imperial corpse drawn by a cart, most of the attend- 
ants leaving it in the street because of a fire alarm that 
they might go off and see the conflagration. And just as 
they are going to put his body down in the church which 
he had built, a man stepping up and saying, " Bishop, the 
man you praise is a robber. This church stands on my 
father's homestead. The property on which this church 
is built is mine. I reclaim my right. In the name of 
Almighty God I forbid you to bury the king here, or to 
cover him with my glebe." " Go up," said the ambition 
of William the Conqueror. " Go up by conquest, go up 
by throne, go up in the sight of all nations, go up by 
cruelties." But one day God said, " Come down, come 
down by the way of a miserable death, come down by the 



34:13 XEW TABERXACLE SERMOXS. 

way of an ignominious obsequies, come down in the sight 
of all nations, come clear down, come down forever." 
And you and I see the same thing on a smaller scale many 
and many a time — illustrations of the fact that God lets 
the wicked live that He may make their overthrow the 
more climacteric 

What is true in regard to sin is true in regard to its 
author, Satan, called Abaddon, called the Prince of the 
Power of the Air, called the serpent, called the dragon. It 
seems to me any intelligent man must admit that there is 
a commander-in-chief of all evil. 

The Persians called him Ahriman, the Hindus called 
him Siva. He was reiu-esented on canvas as a mytholog- 
ical combination of Thor and Cerberus and Pan and Vul- 
can and other horrible addenda. I do not care what you 
call him, that monster of evil is abroad, and his one work 
is destruction. John Milton almost glorified him by 
witchery of description, but he is the concentration of all 
meanness and of all despicability. My little child, seven 
years of age, said to her mother one day, " Why don't God 
kill the devil at once, and have done with it?*'' In less 
terse phrase we have all asked the same question. The 
Bible says he is to be imprisoned and he is to be chained 
down. Why not heave the old miscreant into his dungeon 
now? Does it not seem as if his volume of infamy were 
complete? Does it not seem as if the last fifty years would 
make an appropriate peroration? Xo; God will let him 
go on to the top of all bad endeavor, and then when all 
the earth and all constellations and galaxies and all the uni- 
verse are watching, God will hurl him down with a violence 



WHY ARE SATAN" AND SIN PERMITTED ? 347 

and ghastliness enough to persuade five hundred eternities 
that a rebellion against God must perish. God will not do 
it by piecemeal, God will not do it by small skirmish. He 
will wait until all the troops are massed, and then some 
day when in defiant and confident mood, at the head of his 
army, this Goliath of hell stalks forth, our champion, the 
son of David, will strike him down, not with smooth stones 
from the brook, but with fragments from the Eock of 
Ages. But it will not be done until this giant of evil and 
his holy antagonist come out within full sight of the two 
great armies. The tragedy is only postponed to make the 
overthrow more impressive and climacteric. Do not fret. 
If God can afford to wait you can afford to wait. God's 
clock of destiny strikes only once in a thousand years. Do 
not try to measure events by the second-hand on your little 
time-piece. Sin and Satan go on only that their over- 
throw may at last be the more terrific, the more impress- 
ive, the more resounding, the more climacteric. 

Why do the wicked live? In order that they may build 
up fortresses for righteousness to capture. Have you not 
noticed that God harnesses men, bad men, and accom- 
plishes good through them? Witness Cyrus, witness 
Nebuchadnezzar, witness the fact that the Bastile of op- 
pression was pried open by the bayonets of a bad man. 
Recently there came to me the fact that a college had been 
built at the Far West for infidel purposes. There was to 
be no nonsense of chapel prayers, no Bible reading there. 
All the professors there were pronounced infidels. The 
college was opened, and the work went on, but, of course, 
failed. Not long ago a Presbyterian minister was in a 



348 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

bank in that village on purposes of business, and he over 
heard in an adjoining room the board of trustees of that 
college discussing what they had better do with the insti- 
tution, as it did not get on successfully and one of the- 
trustees proposed that it be handed over to the Presbyteri- 
ans, pref acing the word Presbyterians with a very unhappy 
expletive. The resolutions were passed, and that fortress 
of infidelity has become a fortress of old-fashioned, ortho- 
dox religion, the only religion that will be worth a snaj) of 
your finger when you come to die or appear in the Day of 
Judgment. The devil built the college. Righteousness 
captured it. 

In some city there goes up a great club-house — the 
architecture, the furniture, all the equipment a bedazzle- 
ment of wealth. That particular club-house is designed 
to make gambling and dissipation respectable. 

Do not fret. That splendid building will after a while 
be a free library, or it will be a hospital, or it will be a 
gallery of pure art. Again and again observatories have 
been built by infidelity, and the first thing you know they 
go into the hand of Christian science. God said in the 
Bible that He would put a hook in Sennacherib's nose and 
pull him down by a way he knew not. And God has a 
hook to-day in the nose of every Sennacherib of infidelity 
and sin, and will drag him about as He will. Marble halls 
deserted to sinful amusements will yet be dedicated for 
religious assemblage. All these castles of sin are to be 
captured for God as we go forth with the battle-shout that 
Oliver Cromwell rang out at the head of his troops as he 
rode in on the field of ISTaseby: " Let God arise and let His 



WHY AKE SATAN - AND SIN PEKMITTED ? 349 

enemies be scattered!" After a great fire in London, amid 
the ruins there was nothing left but an arch with the name 
of the architect upon it; and, my friends, whatever else 
goes down, God stays up. 

Why do the wicked live? That some of them may be 
monuments of mercy. 

So it was with John Newton, so it was with Augustine, 
perhaps so it was with you. Chieftains of sin to become 
chieftains of grace. Paul, the apostle, made out of Saul, 
the persecutor. Baxter, the flaming evangel, made out of 
Baxter, the blasphemer. Whole squadrons, with streamers 
of Emmanuel floating from the masthead, though once 
they were launched from the dry-docks of diabolism. 
God lets these wicked men live that He may make jewels 
out of them for coronets, that He may make tongues of 
fire out of them for Pentecosts, that He may make war- 
riors out of them for Armageddons, that he may make 
conquerors out of them for the day when they shall ride at 
the head of the white-horse host in the grand review of the 
resurrection. 

Why do the wicked live? To make it plain beyond all 
controversy that there is another place of adjustment. So 
many of the bad up, so many of the good down. It seems 
to me that no man can look abroad without saying — no 
man of common sense, religious or irreligious, can look 
abroad without saying, " There must be some place where 
brilliant scoundrelism shall be arrested, where innocence 
shall get out from under the heel of despotism. " Com- 
mon fairness as well as eternal justice demands it. 

We adjourn to the great assizes, the stupendous in jus- 



350 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

tices of this life. They are not righted here. There must 
be some place where they will be righted. God can not 
afford to omit the judgment day or the reconstruction of 
conditions. For you can not make me believe that that 
man stuffed with all abomination, having devoured widows' 
houses and digested them, looking with basilisk or tigerish 
eyes upon his fellows, no music so sweet to him as the 
sound of breaking hearts, is, at death, to get out of 
the landau at the front door of the sepulcher and 
pass right on through to the back door of the se|3ulcher, 
and find a celestial turnout waiting for him, so that he can 
drive tandem right up primrosed hills, one glory riding as 
lackey ahead, and another glory riding as postilion behind, 
while that poor woman who sujrported her invalid husband 
and her helpless children by taking in washing and iron- 
ing, often imtting her hand to her side where the cancer- 
ous trouble had already begun, and dropping dead late on 
Saturday night while she was preparing the garments for 
the Sabbath day, coming afoot to the front door of the 
sepulcher, shall pass through to the back door of the sejml- 
cher and find nothing waiting, no one to welcome, no one 
to tell her the way to the King's gate. I will not believe it. 
Solomon was confounded in his day by what he represents 
as jn-inces afoot and beggars a-horseback, but I tell you 
there must be a place and a time when the right foot will 
get into the stirrup. To demonstrate beyond all contro- 
versy that there is another place for adjustment, God lets 
the wicked live. 

Why do the wicked live? For the same reason that He 
lets us live — to have time for repentance. 



WHY AEE SATAN AND SIN PERMITTED ? 351 

Where would you and I have been if sin had been fol- 
lowed by immediate catastrojxhe? AVhile the foot of Christ 
is fleet as that of a roebuck when He comes to save, it does 
seem as if he were hoppled with great languors and infinite 
lethargies when He comes to punish. Oh, I celebrate 
God's slowness, God's retardation, God's putting off the ret- 
ribution ! Do you not think, my brother, it would be a great 
deal better for us to exchange our impatient hypercriticism of 
Providence because this man, by watering of stock, makes 
a million dollars in one day, and another man rides on in 
one bloated iniquity year after year — would it not be bet- 
ter for us to exchange that impatient hypercriticism for 
gratitude everlasting that God let us who were wicked live, 
though we deserved nothing but ca23size and demolition? 
Oh, I celebrate God's slowness! The slower the rail-train 
comes the better, if the drawbridge is off. 

How long have you, my brother, lived unforgiven? 
Fifteen, twenty, forty, sixty years? Lived through great 
awakenings, lived through domestic sorrow, lived through 
commercial calamity, lived through providential crises that 
startled nations, and you are living yet, strangers to God, 
and with no hope for a great future into which you may 
be precipitated. Oh, would it not be better for us to get 
our nature through the Grace of Christ revolutionized and 
transfigured? For I want you to know that God some- 
times changes His gait, and instead of the deliberate tread 
He is the swift witness, and sometimes the enemies of God 
are suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy. 

Make God your ally. What an offer that is! Do not 
fight against Him. Do' not contend against your best in- 



352 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

terests. Yield this morning to the best impulse of your 
heart, and that is toward Christ and heaven. Do not fight 
the Lord that made you and offers to redeem you. 

Philip of France went out with his army, with bows and 
arrows, to fight King Edward III. of England; but just as 
they got into the critical moment of the battle, a shower 
of rain came and relaxed the bow-strings so that they 
were of no effect, and Philip and his army were worsted. 
And all your weaponry against God will be as nothing 
when he rains upon you discomfiture from the heavens. 
Do not fight the Lord any longer. Change allegiance. 
Take down the old flag of sin, run up the new flag of 
grace. It does not take the Lord Jesus Christ the thou- 
sandth part of a second to convert you if you will only sur- 
render, be willing to be saved. The American Congress 
was in anxiety during the Revolutionary War while await- 
ing to hear news from the conflict between Washington 
and Cornwallis, and the anxiety became intense and 
almost unbearable as the days went by. When the news 
came at last that Cornwallis had surrendered and the war 
was practically over, so great was the excitement that the 
doorkeeper of the House of Congress dropped dead from 
joyful excitement. And if this long war between your 
soul and God should come to an end this morning by your 
entire surrender, the war forever over, the news would very 
soon reach the heavens, and nothing but the supernatural 
health of your loved ones before the throne would keep 
them from being prostrated with overjoy at the cessation 
of all sjriritual hostilities. 



WORSHIP IN SONG. 



[Preached in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, May 2, 1886.] 



It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as 
one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking 
the Lord.— ii Chron. v : 13. 

The temple was done. It was the very chorus of all 
magnificence and pomp. Splendor crowded against splen- 
dor. It was the diamond necklace of the earth. From the 
huge pillars crowned with leaves of flowers and rows of 
pomegranate wrought out in burnished metal, down even 
to the tongs and snuffers made out of pure gold, every- 
thing was as complete as the God- directed architect could 
make it. It seemed as if a yision from heaven had 
alighted on the mountains. 

The day for dedication came. Tradition says that there 
were in and around about the temple on that day two 
hundred thousand silver trumpets, forty thousand harps, 
forty thousand timbrels, and two hundred thousand singers; 
so that that all modern demonstrations at Diisseldorf or 
Boston seem noihing compared with that. As this great 
sound surged up amid the precious stones of the temple, 
it must have seemed like the Eiver of Life, dashing against 
the amethyst of the wall of heaven. The sound arose, and 
God, as if to show that He was well pleased with the music 
which His children make in all ages, dropped into the 
midst of the temple a cloud of glory so overpowering that 
the officiating priests were obliged to stop in the midst of 
the services, 



354 STEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

There lias been much discussion as to where music was 
born. I think that at the beginning, when the morning 
stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, 
that the earth heard the echo. The cloud on which the 
angels stood to celebrate the creation was the birthplace of 
song. The stars that glitter at night are only so many 
keys of celestial pearl on which God's fingers play the 
music of the spheres. Inanimate nature is full of God's 
stringed and wind instruments. Silence itself — perfect 
silence is only a musical rest in God's great anthem of 
worship. "Wind among the leaves, insect humming in the 
summer air, the rush of billow upon beach, the ocean far 
out sounding its everlasting psalm, the bobolink on the 
edge of the forest, the quail whistling up from the grass, 
are music. 

While visiting Blackwell's Island I heard coming from 
a window of the lunatic asylum a very sweet song. It was 
sung by one who had lost her reason, and I have come to 
believe that even the deranged and disordered elements of 
nature would make music to our ear, if we only had acute- 
ness enough to listen. I suppose that even the sounds in 
nature that are discordant and repulsive make harmony 
in God's ear. You know that you may come so near to 
an orchestra that the sounds are painful instead of 
pleasurable, and I think that we stand so near devastating 
storm and frightful whirlwind we cannot hear that which 
makes to God's ear and the ear of the spirits above us a 
music as complete as it is tremendous. The Day of Judg- 
ment, which will be a day of uproar and tumult, I suppose 
will bring no dissonance to the ears of those who can 



WORSHIP IN" SONG. 355 

calmly listen; although it will be as when some great per- 
former is executing a boisterous piece of music, he some- 
times breaks down the instrument on which he plays; so 
it may be on that last day that the grand march of God, 
played by the fingers of thunder, and earthquake, and con- 
flagration may break down the world upon which the music 
is executed. 

Not only is inanimate nature full of music but God has 
wonderfully organized the human voice, so that in the 
plainest throat and lungs there are fourteen direct muscles 
which can make oyer sixteen thousand different sounds ! 
Now, there are thirty indirect muscles which can make, it 
has been estimated, more than one hundred and seventy- 
three millions of sounds. Now, I say, when God has so 
constructed the human voice, and when He has filled the 
whole earth with harmony, and when He recognized it in 
the ancient temple, I have a right to come to the conclu- 
sion that God loves music. 

I propose this morning to speak about sacred music, 
first showing you its importance, and then stating some of 
the obstacles to its advancement. I draw the first argu- 
ment for the importance of sacred music from the fact that 
God commanded it. Through Paul He tells us to admon- 
ish one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; 
through David He cries out: " Sing ye to God all ye king- 
doms of the earth." And there are hundreds of other 
passages I might name, proving that it is as much a man's 
duty to sing as it is his duty to pray. Indeed, I think 
there are more commands in the Bible to sing than there 
are to pray. God not only asks for the human voice, but 



356 XEW TABERXACLE SERMOXS. 

for the instruments of music. He asks for the cymbal 
and the harp and the trumpet. And I suppose that, in 
the last days of the Church, the harp, the lute, the trum- 
pet, and all the instruments of music that have given their 
chief aid to the theatre and bacchanal, will be brought by 
their masters and laid down at the feet of Christ, and then 
sounded in the Church's triumph on her way from suffer- 
ing into glory. " Praise ye the Lord ! " Praise Him with 
your voices. Praise Him with stringed instruments and 
with organs. 

I draw another argument for the importance of this 
exercise from the impressiveness of the exercise. You 
know something of what secular music has achieved. You 
know it has made its impression upon governments, upon 
laws, upon literature, upon whole generations. One in- 
spiriting national air is worth thirty thousand men in a 
standing army. There comes a time in the battle when 
one bugle is worth a thousand muskets. In the earlier 
part of our Civil War, the Government proposed to econo- 
mize in bands of music, and many of them were sent home: 
but the generals in the army sent word to "Washington: 
"You are making a very great mistake. We are falling 
back and falling back. We have not enough music." 
Then the Government changed its mind; more bands of 
music were sent to the field, and the day of shameful de- 
feat terminated. I have to tell you that no nation or 
church can afford to severely economize in music. 

Why should we rob the programme of worldly gayety 
when we have so many appropriate songs and tunes com- 
posed in our own day, as well as that magnificent inheri- 



WORSHIP IK SONG. 357 

tance of Church psalmody, which has come down fragrant 
with the devotions of other generations — tunes no more 
worn out than when our great-grandfathers climbed up 
on them from the church pew to glory? Dear old souls, 
how they used to sing ! When they were cheerful our 
grandfathers and grandmothers used to sing " Colchester." 
When they were very meditative then the meeting-house 
rang with "South Street" and "St. Edmonds." Were 
they struck through with great tenderness, they sang 
" Woodstock." Were they wrapped in visions of the 
glory of the Church, they sang " Zion." Were they over- 
borne with the love and glory of Christ, they sang 
"Ariel." And in those days there were certain tunes 
married to certain hymns, and they have lived in peace a 
great while, these two old people, and we have no right to 
divorce them. " What God hath joined together let no 
man put asunder." Born as we have been amid this great 
wealth of church music, augmented by the compositions 
of artists in our day, we ought not to be tempted out cf 
the sphere of Christian harmony, and try to seek uncon- 
secrated sounds. It is absurd for a millionaire to steal. 

Many of you are illustrations of what sacred song can 
do. Through it you were brought into the kingdom of 
Jesus Christ. You stood out against the warning and the 
argument of the pulpit, but Vhen in the sweet words of 
Charles Wesley, or John Newton, or Toplady, the love of 
Jesus w r as sung to your soul, then you surrendered, as 
an armed castle that could not be taken by a host, lifts its 
window to listen to a harp's trill. 

There was a Scotch soldier dying in New Orleans, and 



358 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

a Scotcli minister came in to give him the consolations of 
the Gospel. The man turned over on his pillow, and said: 
"Don't talk to me about religion." Then the Scotch 
minister began to sing a familiar hymn of Scotland that 
was composed by David Dickenson, beginning with the 
words: 

" O mother dear, Jerusalem, 
When shall I come to thee ? 

He sung it to the tune of "Dundee," and everybody in 
Scotland knows that; and as he began to sing the dying 
soldier turned over on his pillow, and said to the minister: 
" Where did you learn that?" " Why," replied the min- 
ister, "my mother taught me that." "So did mine," 
said the dying Scotch soldier; and the very foundation of 
his heart was upturned, and then and there he yielded 
himself to Christ. Oh, it has an irresistible power ! 
Luther's sermons have been forgotten, but his " Judgment 
Hymn " sings on through the ages, and will keep on sing- 
ing until the blast of the archangel's trumpet shall bring 
about that very day which the hymn celebrates. I would 
to God that those who hear me to-day would take these 
songs of salvation as messages from heaven; for, just as 
certainly as the birds brought food to Elijah by the brook 
of Cherith, so these winged harmonies God sent are flying 
to your soul with the bread of life. Open your mouth and 
take it, hungry Elijah ! 

I have also noticed the power of sacred song to soothe 
perturbation. You may have come in here with a great 
many worriments and anxieties, yet perhaps in the singing 
of the first hymn you lost all those worriments and anxie- 



WORSHIP IK SOKG. 359 

ties. You have read in the Bible of Saul, and how he 
was sad and angry, and how the boy David came in and 
played the evil spirit out of him. A Spanish king was 
melancholy. The windows were all closed. He sat in the 
darkness. Nothing could bring him forth until Farinelli 
came and discoursed music for three or four days to him. 
On the fourth day he looked up, and wept and rejoiced, 
and the windows were thrown open, and that which all 
the splendors of the court could not do, the power of song 
accomplished. If you have anxieties and worriments try 
this heavenly charm upon them. Do not sit down on the 
bank of the hymn, but plunge in that the devil of care 
may be brought out of you. 

It also arouses to action. Do you not know that a sing- 
ing church is always a triumphant church ? If a congre- 
gation is silent during the exercise, or partially silent, it 
is the silence of death. If when the hymn is given out 
you hear the faint hum of here and there a father and 
mother in Israel, while the vast majority are silent, that 
minister of Christ who is presiding needs to have a very 
strong constitution if he does not get the chills. He needs 
not only the grace of God, but nerves like whalebone. It 
is amazing how some people with voice enough to dis- 
charge all their duties in the world, when they come into 
the house of God have no voice to discharge this duty. I 
really believe that if the Church of Christ could rise up 
and sing as it ought to sing, that where we have a hun- 
dred souls brought into the kingdom of Christ there would 
be a thousand. How was it in olden time? Cajetan said: 
" Luther conquered us by his songs." 



3G0 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS, 

But I must now speak of some of the obstacles in the 
way of the advancement of this sacred music; and the first 
is, that it has been impressed into the service of supersti- 
tion. I am far from believing that music ought always to 
be positively religious. Eefined art has opened places 
where music has been secularized and lawfully so. The 
drawing-room, the musical club, the orchestra, the concert, 
by the gratification of pure taste, and the productions of 
harmless amusement, and the improvement of talent have 
become very forces in the advancement of our civilization. 
Music has as much right to laugh in Surrey Gardens as it 
has to pray in St. Paul's. In the kingdom of nature we 
have the glad fifing of the wind as well as the long metre 
psalm of the thunder. But, while all this is so, every ob- 
server has noticed that this art which God intended for 
the improvement of the ear and the voice and the head 
and the heart, has often been impressed into the service of 
error. Tartini, the musical composer, dreamed one night 
that Satan snatched from his hand an instrument, and 
played upon it something very sweet — a dream that has 
often been fulfilled in our day, the voice and the instru- 
ments that ought to have been devoted to Christ, captured 
from the Church and applied to purposes of sin. 

Another obstacle has been an inordinate fear of criti- 
cism. The vast majority of people singing in church 
never want anybody else to hear them sing. Everybody 
is waiting for somebody else to do his duty. If we all 
sang, then inaccuracies that are evident when only a 
few sing would be drowned out. God asks you to do as 
well as you can, and then, if you get the wrong pitch or 



WORSHIP IN SONG. 3G1 

keep wrong time, he will forgive any deficiency of the ear 
and imperfection of the voices. Angels will not laugh if 
you should lose your place in the musical scale, or come 
in at the close a bar behind. 

There are three schools of singing I am told — the Ger- 
man school, the Italian school, and the French school of 
singing. Now, I would like to add a fourth school, and 
that is the school of Christ. The voice of a contrite, 
broken heart, although it may not be able to stand human 
criticism, makes better music to God's ear than the most 
artistic performance, when the heart is wanting. I know 
it is easier to preach on this than it is to practice; but 
I sing for two reasons — first, because I like it, and next 
because I want to encourage those w T ho do not know how. 
I have but very little faculty in that direction, and no 
culture at all, yet I am resolved to sing though every 
note should go off like a Chinese gong. God has com- 
manded it, and I dare not be silent. He calls on the 
beasts, on the cattle, on the dragons to praise Him, and 
we ought not to be behind the cattle and the dragons. 

Another obstacle that has been in the way of the ad- 
vancement of this holy art has been so much angry discus- 
sion on the subject of music. There are those who would 
have this exercise conducted by musical instruments. In 
the same church there are those who do not like musical 
instruments, and so it is organ and no organ, and there is 
a fight. In another church it is a question whether the 
music shall be conducted by a precentor or by a drilled 
choir. Some want a drilled choir, and some want a pre- 
centor, and there is a fight. Then there are those who 



362 KBW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

would like in the church to have the organ played in a 
dull, lifeless, droning way, while there are others who 
would have it wreathed into fantasties, branching out in 
jets and spangles of sound, rolling and tossing in marvel- 
lous convolutions, as when in pyrotechnic display you 
think a piece is exhausted it breaks out in wheels, rockets, 
blue lights and serpentine demonstrations. 

Some would have the organ played in almost inaudible 
sweetness, and others would have it full of staccato pas- 
sages that make the audience jump with great eyes and 
hair on end as though by a vision of the witch of Endor; 
and he who tries to please all will succeed in nothing. 
Nevertheless, you are to admit the fact that this contest 
which is going on in hundreds of the churches of the 
United States to-day, is a mighty hindrance to the ad- 
vancement of this art. In this way scores and scores of 
churches are entirely crippled as to all influence, and the 
music is a damage rather than a praise. 

Another obstacle in the advancement of this art has 
been the erroneous notion that this part of the service 
could be conducted by a delegation. Churches have said : 
" Oh, what an easy time we shall have. The minister will 
do the preaching, and the choir will do the singing, and 
we will have nothing to do/' And you know as well as I 
that there are a great multitude of churches all through 
this land, where the people are not expected to sing. The 
whole work is done by delegation of four, or six, or ten 
persons, and the audience is silent. In such a church in 
Syracuse, an old elder persisted in singing, and so the choir 
appointed a committee to go and ask the squire if he would 



WORSHIP IK SOKG. 3G3 

not stop. You know that in a great multitude of churches 
the choir are expected, and do all the singing, and the 
great masses of the people are expected to be silent, and if 
you utter your voice you are interfering. There they 
stand, the four, with opera-glass dangling at their side, 
singing, " Eock of Ages, cleft for me," with the same 
spirit that the night before on the stage they took their 
part in the " Grand Duchess" or " Don Giovanni." 

Now, in this church, we have resolved upon the plan of 
conducting the music by a precentor. We do it for two 
reasons, one is that by throwing the whole responsibility 
upon the mass of the people, making the great multitude 
the choir, we might rouse more heartiness. The congre- 
gation coming on the Sabbath day feel that they cannot 
delegate this part of the great service to any one else, and 
so they themselves assume it. We have glorious congre- 
gational singing here. People have come many miles to 
hear it. They are not sure about the preaching, but they 
can always depend on the singing. We have heard, the 
sound coming up like " the voice of many waters," but it 
will be done at a better rate after a while, when we shall 
realize the height, and the depth, and the immensity of 
this privilege. 

Another reason why we adopted this plan. We do not 
want any choir quarrels. You know very well that in 
scores of the churches there has been perpetual contention 
Jn that direction. The only church fight that ever oc- 
curred under my ministry, was over a melodeon in my 
first settlement. Have you never been in church on the 
Sabbath day and heard the choir sing, and you said: 



364 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

" That is splendid music/' The next Sabbath you were 
in the church, and there was no choir at all. Wiry ? The 
leader was mad, or his assistants were mad, or they were 
all mad together. Some of the choirs are made up of our 
best Christian people! Some of the warmest friends I 
have ever had have stood up in them, Sabbath after Sab- 
bath, conscientiously and successfully leading the praises 
of God. But the majority of the choirs throughout the 
land are not made up of Christian people, and three 
fourths of the church fights originate in the organ-loft. I 
take that back and say, nine tenths. Many of our 
churches are dying of choirs. Let us, as a church, give 
still more attention to the music. If a man, with voice 
enough to sing, keep silent during this exercise, he com- 
mits a crime against God and insults the Almighty. 

Music ought to rush from the audience like t-he water 
from a rock — clear, bright, sparkling. If all the other 
part of the church service is dull do not have the music 
dull. With so many thrilling things to sing about, away 
with all drawling and stupidity ! There is nothing that 
makes me so nervous as to sit in a pulpit and look off on 
an audience with their eyes three fourths closed and their 
lips almost shut, mumbling the praises of God. During 
my recent absence I preached to a large audience, and all 
the music they made together did not equal one skylark ! 
People do not sleep at a coronation. Do not let us sleep 
when we come to a Saviour's crowning. In order to a 
proper discharge of this duty, let us stand up, save as age, 
or weakness, or fatigue excuse us. Seated in an easy pew 
we cannot do this duty half so well as when, upright, we 



WORSHIP IK SONG. 365 

throw our whole body into it. Let our song be like an 
acclamation of victory. You have a right to sing. Do 
not surrender your prerogative. 

We want to rouse all our families upon this subject. 
We want each family of our congregation to be a singing- 
school. Childish petulance, obduracy, and intractability 
would be soothed if we had more singing in the house- 
hold, and then our little ones would be prepared for the 
great congregation on Sabbath-day, their voices uniting 
with our voices in the praises of the Lord. After a shower 
there are scores of streams that come down the mountain 
side with voices rippling and silvery, pouring into one 
river, and then rolling in united strength to the sea. So 
I would have all the families in my church send forth the 
voice of prayer and praise, pouring it into the great tide 
of public worship that rolls on and on to empty into the 
great wide heart of God. Never can we have our church 
sing as it ought, until our families sing as they ought. 

There will be a great revolution on this subject in all 
our churches. God will come down by His Spirit and 
rouse up the old hymns and tunes that have not been 
more than half awake since the time of our grandfathers. 
The silent pews in the church will break forth into music, 
and when the conductor takes his place on the Sabbath 
day, there will be a great host of voices rushing into the 
harmony. My Christian friends, if we have no taste for 
this service on earth, what will we do in heaven, where 
they all sing and sing forever ? I would that our singing 
to-day might be like the Saturday night rehearsal for the 
Sabbath morning in the skies, and might begin now by 



3GG NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

the strength and by the help of God to discharge a duty 

which none of us have fully performed. 

" Let those refuse to sing 

Who never knew our God; 
But children of the Heavenly king 
Should speak their joys abroad." 

Come now, clear your throats, and get ready for this 
duty or you will never hear the end of this. I never shall 
forget hearing a Frenchman singing the "Marseillaise 
Hymn" on the Champs Elysees, Paris, just after the 
battle of Sedan. I never saw such enthusiasm before or 
since, as he sang that national air. Oh, how the French- 
men shouted ! Have you ever, in an English assemblage, 
heard a band play " God Save the Queen?" If you have 
you know something about the enthusiasm of a national 
air. Now, I tell you that these songs we sing Sabbath by 
Sabbath are the national airs of Jesus Christ and of the 
kingdom of heaven. When Cromwell's army went into 
battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out 
the long metre doxology to the tune of " Old Hundred," 
and that great host, company by company, regiment by 
regiment, battalion by battalion, joined in the doxology: 

" Praise God from whom all blessings flow, 
Praise him all creatures here below; 
Praise him above, ye heavenly host, 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 

And while they sang they marched, and while they marched 
they fought, and while they fought they got the victory. 
Oh, men and women of Jesus Christ, let us go into all our 
conflicts singing the praises of God, and then, instead of 
falling back, as we often do, from defeat to defeat, we will 
be marching on from victory to victory ! 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 



[Preached Sunday Morning, April 18, 1886.] 



" Then was our mouth filled with laughter." — Psalm cxxvi : 2. 
" He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." — Psalm ii : 4. 

Thirty-eight times does the Bible make reference to 
this configuration of the features and quick expulsion of 
breath which we call laughter. Sometimes it is born of 
the sunshine, and sometimes of the midnight. Sometimes 
it stirs the sympathy of angels, and sometimes the cachinna- 
tion of devils. All healthy people laugh; whether it pleases 
the Lord or displeases Him, that depends upon when we 
laugh and at what we laugh. My theme this morning is 
the laughter of the Bible — namely, Sarah's laugh, or that 
of scepticism; David's laugh, or that of spiritual exulta- 
tion; the fool's laugh, or that of sinful merriment; God's 
laugh, or that of infinite condemnation : heaven's laugh, or 
that of eternal triumph. 

Sarah's laugh or that of scepticism. I. Scene: an Ori- 
ental tent; the occupants, old Abraham and Sarah, perhaps 
wrinkled and decrepit. Their three guests are three 
angels, the Lord Almighty one of them. In return for 
the hospitality shown by the old people, God promises 
Sarah that she shall become the ancestress of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Sarah laughs in the face of God; she does 
not believe, it. She is affrighted at what she has done. 
She denies it. She says : " I didn't laugh." Then God 



368 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

retorted, with an emphasis that silenced all disputation: 
" But thou didst laugh." My friends, the laugh, of scepti- 
cism in all the ages is only the echo of Sarah's laughter. 

God says He will accomplish a thing, and men say it 
cannot be done. A great multitude laugh at the miracles. 
They say they are contrary to the laws of nature. What 
is a law of nature ? It is God's way of doing a thing. You 
ordinarily cross the river by the Bridge; to-morrow you 
change for one day, and you go. across Wall Street Ferry. 
You made the rule; have you not a right to change it? I 
ordinarily come in at that door (pointing to a side entrance) 
of the church. Suppose next Sabbath I should come 
in at the other door? It is a habit I have. Have I 
not a right to change my habit? A law of nature. God's 
habit — his way of doing things. If He makes the law, 
has He not a right to change it at any time He wants 
to change it? Alas for the folly of those who laugh at 
God when He says: " I will do a thing," they responding: 
"You can't do it." God says that the Bible is true — it 
is all true. Bishop Oolenso laughs. Herbert Spencer 
laughs. John Stuart Mill laughs. All great German 
universities laugh. Harvard laughs — softly ! A great 
many of the learned institutions of this country, with long 
rows of professors seated on the fence between Christianity 
and infidelity, laugh softly. They say: "We didn't 
laugh." That was Sarah's trick. God thunders from the 
heavens: " But thou didst laugh ! " 

The Garden of Eden was only a fable. There never was 
any ark built, or, if it was built, it was too small to hold two 
of every kind, The pillar of fire by night is only the northern 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 369 

lights. The ten plagues of Egypt only a brilliant specimen 
of jugglery. The sea parted because the wind blew violent- 
ly a great while from one direction. The sun and moon did 
not put themselves out of the way for Joshua. Jacob's 
ladder was only horizontal and picturesque clouds. The 
destroying angel smiting the firstborn in Egypt was only 
cholera infantum become epidemic. The gullet of the 
whale, by positive measurement, is too small to swallow a 
prophet. The lame, the dumb, the blind, the halt cured by 
mere human surgery. The resurrection of Christ's friend 
only a beautiful tableau, Christ and Lazarus and Mary and 
Martha acting their parts well. My friends, there is not a 
doctrine or statement of God's Holy Word that has not 
been derided by the scepticism of this day. 

I take up this Book of King James's translation. I 
consider it a perfect Bible, but here are sceptics who want 
it torn to pieces, and now with this Bible in my hand, let 
me tear out all those portions which the scepticism of this 
day demands shall be torn out. 

What shall go first ? " Well," says some one in the 
audience, "take out all that about the creation, and 
about the first settlement of the world. " Away goes Gen- 
esis. " Now," says some one, " take out all that about 
the miraculous guidance of the children of Israel in the 
wilderness." Away goes Exodus. "Now," says some 
one else in the audience, "there are things in Deuter- 
onomy and Kings that are not fit to be read." Away 
go Deuteronomy and the Kings. "Now," says some 
one, " the Book of Job is a drama; that ought to come 
out." Away goes the Book of Job. "Now," says some 



370 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

.one, "those passages in the New Testament which 
imply the divinity of Jesus Christ ought to come out." 
Away go the evangelists. " Now," says some one, " the 
Book of Revelation — how preposterous; it represents a 
man with the moon under his feet and a sharp sword in 
his hand." Away goes the Book of Eevelation. Now 
there are a few pieces left. What shall we do with them? 
" Oh," says some man in the audience, " I don't believe a 
word of the Bible from one end to the other." Well, it is 
all gone. Now, you have put out the last light for the 
nations. Now it is the pitch darkness of eternal midnight. 
How do you like it f 

But I think, my friends, we had better keep the Bible a 
little longer intact. It has done pretty well for a good many 
years. There are. old people who find it a comfort to have 
it on their laps, and children like the stories in it. Let 
us keep it for a curiosity anyhow. If the Bible is to be 
thrown out of the school, and out of the court-room, so 
men no more swear by it, and it is to be put in a dark 
corridor of the city library, the Koran on one side, and 
the writings of Confucius on the other, then let us each 
one keep a copy for himself; for we might have trouble, and 
we would want to be under the delusions of its consolation; 
and we might die, and we would want the delusion of the 
exalted residence at God's right hand which it mentions. 

Oh, what an awful thing it is to laugh in God's face, and 
hurl His revelation back at Him! After a while the day 
will come when they will say they did not laugh. Then 
all the hyper criticisms, all the caricatures, and all the 
learned sneers in the Quarterly Review will be brought to 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 371 

judgment, and amid the rocking of everything beneath, 
and amid the flaming of everything above, God will thun- 
der: " But thou didst laugh!" I think the most fasci- 
nating laughter at Christianity I ever remember was Theo- 
dore Parker's. He made the Word of God seem ridiculous, 
and he laughed on at our holy religion until he came to 
die, and then he said: " My life has been a failure; a fail- 
ure domestically, I have no children; a failure socially, 
for I am treated in the streets like a pirate; a failure pro- 
fessionally, because I know but one minister that has 
adopted my sentiments." For a quarter of a century he 
laughed at Christianity, and ever since Christianity has 
been laughing at him. Now, it is a mean thing to go into 
a man's house and steal his goods; but I tell you the most 
gigantic burglary ever enacted is the proposition to steal 
these treasures of our holy religion. The meanest laugh- 
ter ever uttered is the laughter of the sceptic. 

II. The next laughter mentioned in this Bible is David's 
laughter or the expression of spiritual exultation. " Then 
was our mouth filled with laughter." He got very much 
down sometimes, but there are other chapters where for 
four or five times he calls up the people to praise and 
exult. It was not a mere twitch of the lips; it was a 
demonstration that took hold of his whole physical nature. 
" Then was our mouth filled with laughter. "- 

My friends, this world will never be converted to God 
until Christians cry less and laugh and sing more. The 
horrors are a poor bait. If people are to be persuaded to 
adopt our holy religion, it will be because they have made 
up their mind it is a happy religion, and they do not like an 



372 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

ultra-bilious Christianity. I know there are morbid people 
who enjoy a funeral. They come early to see the friends 
take leave of the corpse, and they steal a ride to the ceme- 
tery; bnt all healthy people enjoy a wedding better than 
they do a burial. Now, you make the religion of Christ 
sepulchral and hearse-like, and you make it repulsive. 

I say plant the rose of Sharon along the church walks, 
and columbine to clamber over the church wall; and have 
a smile on the lip, and have the mouth filled with holy 
laughter. There is no man in the world except the Chris- 
tian that has a right to feel an untrammelled glee. He is 
promised everything is to be for the best here, and he is 
on the way to a delight which will take all the procession 
with palm branches, and all the orchestra harped and 
cymballed and trumpeted to express. " Oh," you say, 
" I have so much trouble ! " Have you more trouble than 
Paul had? What does he say? "Sorrowful, yet always 
rejoicing. Poor, yet making many rich. Having nothing, 
yet possessing all things." The merriest laugh I ever 
heard has been in the sick-room of God's dear children. 
When Theodosius was put upon the rack, he suffered very 
great torture at the first. Somebody asked him how he 
endured all that pain on the rack. He replied: " When I 
was first put upon the rack, I suffered a great deal; but 
very soon a young man in white stood by my side, and 
with a soft and comfortable handkerchief he wiped the 
sweat from my brow, and my pains were relieved; it was 
a punishment for me to get from the rack, because when 
the pain was all gone, the angel was gone." Oh, rejoice 
evermore I 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 373 

Yon know how it is in the army — an army in encamp- 
ment. If to-day news comes that our side has had a de- 
feat, and to-morrow another portion of the tidings comes, 
saying: " We have had another defeat!" it demoralizes 
all the host. But if the news come of victory to-day and 
victory to-morrow, the whole army is impassioned for the 
contest. Now, in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
report fewer defeats; tell us the victories; victory over sin 
and death and hell. Eejoice evermore, and again I say 
rejoice. 

III. The next laughter mentioned in the Bible that I 
shall speak of is the fool's laughter or the expression of 
sinful merriment. Solomon was very quick at simile; 
when he makes a comparison we all catch it. What is the 
laughter of a fool like? He says: " It is the crackling of 
thorns under a pot. " The kettle is swung, a bunch of 
brambles is put under it, and the torch is applied to it, 
and there is a great noise and a big blaze and a sputter, 
and a quick extinguishment. Then it is darker than it 
was before. Fool's laughter ! The most miserable thing 
on earth is a bad man's fun. There they are, ten men in 
a bar-room. They have at home wives, mothers, daugh- 
ters. The impure jest starts at one corner of the bar- 
room, and crackle, crackle, crackle it goes all around. In 
five hundred such guffaws there is not one item of happi- 
ness. They all feel bemeaned, if they have any conscience 
left. Have nothing to do with men or women who tell 
immoral stories. I have no confidence either in their 
Christian character or their morality. 

So all merriment that springs out of the defects of 



374 HEW TABEKHACLE SEKMOHS. 

others — caricature of a lame foot, or a curved spine, or a 
blind eye, or a deaf ear — will be met with the judgments of 
God, either upon you or your children. Twenty years 
ago, in this city of Brooklyn, I knew a man who was par- 
ticularly skilful in imitating the lameness of a neighbor. 
Not long ago, a son of the skilful mimic had his leg am- 
putated for the very defect which his father had mimicked 
years before. I do not say it was a judgment of God. I 
leave you to make your own inference. So all merriment 
born of dissipation — that which starts at the counter of 
the drinking restaurant, or from the wine-glass in the 
home circle — the maudlin simper, the meaningless joke, 
the saturnalian gibberish, the paroxysm of mirth about 
nothing, that you sometimes see in the fashionable club- 
room or the exquisite parlor at twelve o'clock at night, are 
the crackling of thorns under a pot. Such laughter and 
such sin ends in death. 

When I was a lad a book came out entitled " Don Jour's 
Patent Sermons; " it made a great stir, a very wide laugh 
all over the country, that book did. It was a caricature 
of the Christian ministry, and of the Word of God, and of 
the day of judgment. Oh, we had a great langh ! The 
commentary on the whole thing is that, not long ago, the 
author of that book died in poverty, shame, debauchery, 
kicked out of society, and cursed of Almighty God. The 
laughter of such men is the echo of their own damnation. 

IV. The next laughter that I shall mention as being in 
the Bible is the laughter of God's condemnation. "He 
that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." Again "the 
Lord will laugh at him," Again: " I will laugh at his 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 375 

calamity." With such demonstration will God greet every 
kind of great sin and wickedness. Bad men build up vil- 
lainies higher and higher. Good men almost pity God 
because He is so schemed against by men. Suddenly a 
pin drops out of the machinery of wickedness, or a secret 
is revealed, the foundation begins to rock; finally, the 
whole thing is demolished. What is the matter ? I will 
tell you what is the matter. The crash of ruin is only the 
reverberation of God's laughter. 

On Wall Street there are a great many good men and a 
great many fraudulent men. A fraudulent man says: " I 
mean to have my million." He goes to work reckless of 
honesty, and he gets his first 1100,000. He gets after a 
while his $200,000. After a while he gets his $500,000. 
" Now," he says, " I have only one more move to make, 
and I shall- have my million." He gathers up all his re- 
sources; he makes that last grand move, he fails and loses 
all, and he has not enough money of his own lef fc to pay 
the cost of the car to his home. People cannot under- 
stand this spasmodic revulsion. Some said it was a turn 
in Erie Railroad stock, or in Western Union, or in Illinois 
Central; some said it was Jay Gould; some said it was one 
speculator, some another. They all guessed wrong. I 
will tell you what it was: " He that sitteth in the heavens 
laughed." 

A man in New York said he would be the richest man 
in the city. He left his honest work of chair-making, 
and got into the city councils some way, and in ten years 
stole fifteen million dollars from the city government. 

He held the Legislature of the State of New York in the 



376 IJEW TABERNACLE SERMOXS. 

grip of his right hand. Suspicions were aroused. The 
Grand Jury presented indictments. The whole land stood 
aghast. The man who expected to put half the city in his 
vest-pocket goes to Blackwell's Island; goes to Ludlow 
Street Jail; breaks prison, and goes across the sea; is re- 
arrested and brought back, and again remanded to jail. 
Why ? " He that sitteth in the heavens laughs." 

Eome was a great empire; she had Horace and Virgil 
among her poets; she had Augustus and Constantine 
among her emperors. But what mean the defaced Pan- 
theon, and the Forum turned into a cattle-market, and 
the broken-walled Coliseum, and the architectural skeleton 
of her great aqueducts ? What was that thunder ? " Oh," 
yon say, "that was the roar of the battering-rams against 
her walls." No. What was that quiver? "Oh," you 
say, "that was the tramp of hostile legions." Xo. The 
quiver and the roar were the outburst of omnipotent 
laughter from the defied and insulted heavens. Borne 
defied God and He laughed her down. Thebes defied God 
and He laughed her down. Xineveh defied God and He 
laughed her down. Babylon defied God and He laughed 
her down. 

There is an immense difference between God's laugh 
and His smile. His smile is eternal beatitude. He smiled 
when David sang, aud Miriam clapped the cymbals, and 
Hannah made garments for her son, and Paul preached, 
and John kindled with apocalyptic vision, and when any 
man has anything to do and does it well. His smile ! 
vVhy, it is the apple orchards in full bloom. It is morn- 
ing breaking on a rippling sea. It is heaven at high noon, 



THE LAUGHTER OE THE BIBLE. 377 

all tlie bells beating the marriage peal. But His laughter 
— may it never fall on us ! It is a condemnation for our 
sin. It is a wasting away. We may let the satirist laugh 
at us, and all cur companions laugh at us, and we be made 
the target for the merriment of earth and hell; but God 
forbid that we should ever come to the fulfillment of the 
prophecy against the rejectors of the truth: " I will laugh 
at your calamity. " But, my friends, all of us who reject 
the pardon of the Gospel are to come under that tremen- 
dous bombardment. 

God wants us all to repent; He counsels, He coaxes, He 
importunes, He begs us. He comes down out of heaven. 
He puts all the world's sin on one shoulder, He puts all 
the world's sorrow on the other shoulder, and then, with 
that Alps on one side and that Himalaya on the other, He 
starts up the hill back of Jerusalem to achieve our salva- 
tion. He puts the palm of His right hand on one long 
spike, and He puts the palm of His left hand on another 
long spike, and then, with his hands spotted with His own 
blood, He gesticulates, saying: " Look ! look ! and live ! 
With the crimson veil of My sacrifice I will cover all your 
sins. With my dying groan I will swallow up all your 
groans. Look ! live ! " 

But a thousand of you this morning turn your back to 
that. And then this voice of invitation turns to a tone 
divinely ominous, that sobs like a simoom or an equinox 
through the first chapter of Proverbs: " Because I have 
called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and 
no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my coun- 
sel and would none of my reproof, / also will laugh at 



: " ~ 3TEW IABEESACXE SILRtt : 1 

tout ea]lamity-~ Oh, what a laugh that is! A deep 
laugh. A long, reverberating laugh. An overwhelming 
laugh. God grant we ma y never hear ifc. Bnt in this day 
of merciful visitation yield your heart to Christ, that you 
may spend all your life on earth under His smOe and es- 
:■■:.'_ -r ::-:r-r: :..: z'z.zzz.zzz :: :"_r '_::-_-"_ ::! "-:•".'- iL-lir."-.' :: ::.. 

Y. The other laughter mentioned in the Bible, the only 
:z.z I ilill sreiJ: ;:. 1= ^.r::.'- Yt^Ltt:. :: -" : :/•_ --• '■ : 
of dermal triumph. Christ said to His disciples: "Blessed 
are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. 9 That makes 
zzz zzzz:~ Z'~-*~-~~-~r.~ zz_zr. ~z :zzz z.:z :■: - ' -zz .. :zz z ~~-. ~_z. 
>;-:! zizzzrzzz .::.:-ir7 7 ; :::r=. Tz.z ::r—V : =T.: i~I 
-:.f -■:■■:: ::l= :_ -r.^: :/.:.: = ::.:.t t~:: "r "_ "r — :^1I il;-.'.:t 
me miserable. I am glad to know that the heaven of the 
Li.'.r :- :..:: :n> :, -;'.:,- :: '_ .'.7 — .rLiiT. ':." :_ :.^r.::- 
eent sociality. "What, 5 * say you, "will the ringing 
laugh go around the circles of the saved? 9 I say. 
pure laughter, cheering laughter, holy laughter. It wul 
be a laugh ef cxmgratmlatiem, 

~z.zz.~rzz.r-z-.: t "" ' ' zr \z^ ~\ 

fortune, or who has got over some dire sickness, do we 
:.::-;::£:l:,:'-. I: — z n:: lz*zz~- ~r.z.~zzzz^ A^i — ~z.-z. 
we get to heaven and see our friends there, some of them 
~zju-rzz.z ZZZ.ZZ.Z :i: :i zz :- ■ : :. .'. v ' ..:. : :. — "_j. ~ ~"."_ ^7 
to one of them: " The last time I saw you, you had been 
rzzz-z. 1 ::: -.1 - r£- :. ir_: zzz-r.zzr. z-~ r. 

:: :: *- :t'_t: _ r — /. =:.-. 7 " Y - ". : : - -:. 7^ ;■= ~-z. - z.zz.~ - 
: _zzz -=~. r'z. zz.z z'z-Z-zzzz>zzzzz. zz^ " . - :-: ■ '. ": - Y'-- T - 
when wesaw yon last. I congratulate you on your eternal 
:-:.;t 7 -;t. •' Y.- = '..Y_: ;.-.-.: ± Y. :":.:. ~- -.„ \- .....: ■ v.\ ..:■.:•:- 



THE LAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE. 379 

all those who have come up out of great financial embar- 
rassments in ths world, because they have become million- 
aires in heaven. 

Ye shall laugh, it will be a laugh of reassociation. It is 
as natural for us to laugh when we meet those we haven't 
seen for ten years, as anything is possible to be natural. 
And when we meet our friends, over whose departure we 
lamented ten, twenty, thirty years before, will it not be 
with infinite congratulation ? our perceptions quickened, 
our knowledge improved? We will know each other at a 
flash, and have to talk over all that happened since we 
have been separated, the one that has been ten years in 
heaven telling us of all that has happened in the ten years 
of his heavenly residence, and we telling him in return 
what has happened during the ten years of his absence 
from earth. 

We shall laugh. I think George Whitefield and John 
Wesley will have a laugh of contempt for their earthly 
collisions, and that Toplady and Charles Wesley will have 
a laugh of contempt for their earthly misunderstandings, 
and the two farmers who were in a lawsuit all their clays 
will have a laugh of contempt over their earthly disturb- 
ance about a line fence. Exemption from all annoyance. 
Immersion in all gladness. Ye shall laugh. 

Yes; it will be a laugh of triumph. Oh, what a blessed 
thing it will be to stand on the wall of heaven, and look 
down at Satan, and hurl at him defiance, and see him 
shake his chains, and we free from his clutches ! Yes; it 
will be a laugh of royal greeting; a laugh of royal greet- 
ing. You know how the Frenchmen cheered when Napo- 



380 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

leon came back from Elba. You know bow the English 
cheered when "Wellington came back from Waterloo. You 
know how the Americans cheered when Kossuth arrived 
from Hungary. You remember how the Romans cheered 
when Pompey came back victor over nine hundred cities. 
Every cheer was a laugh. But oh, the mightier greeting, 
the gladder greeting, when the snow-white cavalry troops 
of heaven shall go through the streets; according to 
Eevelation, Christ, in the red, the crimson coat, seated on 
a white horse, and all the armies of heaven flying on white 
horses; but when we see and hear that galloping cavalcade, 
we shall cheer, we shall laugh. 

Does not your heart beat and cry this morning at the 
thought of that great jubilee upon which we are soon to 
enter? I pray God that when we get through with this 
world and are going out of it, we may have the same vision 
that a Christian had when he said he saw written all over 
the clouds of the sky the letter W, and they asked him, 
standing by his side, what he thought that letter "W meant. 
Oh, he says, that stands for Welcome. So may it be when 
we quit this world. W on the gate, W on the door of the 
mansion, W on the throne. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. 

I have preached this sermon with five prayerful wishes: 
That you might see what a mean thing is the laughter of 
scepticism, what a bright thing is the laugh of spiritual 
exultation; what a hollow thing is the laugh of sinful 
merriment; what an awful thing is the laugh of con- 
demnation; what a radiant, rubicund thing is the laughter 
of eternal triumph. Avoid the ill, choose the right; be 
comforted, be comforted. Blessed are ye that weep now, 
for ye shall laugh — ye shall laugh ! 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF 
HEAVEN. 



[Preached in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, May 16th, 1886.] 



' Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." — St. 
Luke, xv : 7. 

A lost sheep ! There is nothing more thoroughly lost 
than that. I look through the window of a shepherd's 
cabin. It is night, and the candles are lighted. The 
shepherd's staff stands in the corner. He has just shaken 
his coat from the dirt and dust. His neighbors are in, 
and he sits down, panting and exhausted, on a rough 
bench, while his wife, and children, and friends say to 
him: " Come now, tell us the story of how you found it; 
the poor thing!" "Well," he says, "this morning I 
went out to the yard to count the flocks, and they didn't 
count right, for McDonald, you know, we have a hundred 
of them, and I counted ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety- 
seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine. I said: ' There's one 
missing.' So I counted again — ninety- five, ninety-six, 
ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine — sure enough there 
is one gone. And I whistled for the dogs and started. I 
crossed the bridge, and I leaped the gullies, and I tracked 
the woods, and I cried, ' So ho ! So ho ! ' but not a bleat of 
the poor lamb did I hear. I said to myself: ' It must 
have dropped into a pit, or a pack of wolves have come 
down and sucked its life out' But I went on, for it was 



382 NEW TABEKNACLE SERMONS. 

a favorite lamb — it was that one, you know, with a black 
spot on the right shoulder — the one that came up and 
licked my hand when I used to cross the field. It was a 
favorite lamb, and I kept on and I cried as I went. And 
after a little while I heard the dogs bark, and I said: 
' What's that ? ' and I hastened over the hill, and no sooner 
had I come over the hill-top than there I saw the poor 
lamb. It had fallen into a ditch, and it was covered with 
slush and slime; and when I leaned over and lifted it out, 
0, I wish you could have seen how lovingly and gratefully 
it looked into my face. Poor thing! it was so fagged out 
and so frightened it could not walk; and I lifted it and I 
put it upon my shoulder, and I started home. 0, it was 
a long tramp, and that coat hanging there shows in just 
what a condition the lamb was when I shouldered it. But 
now it is safe in the yard, thank God ! " And the shep- 
herd's wife spread the table and brought out the best fare 
they could afford, and the company sat up very late that 
night, and they ate, and they drank, and they sang, and 
they danced, and they told over and over again the story 
of the lost sheep. 

Well, my friends, it was by such rustic yet tender illus- 
trations that Christ told the story of a man going away 
from God and then coming back, in the familiar parable 
of the lost sheep, closing with the words of my text: 
" Likewise, joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that re- 
penteth." 

To repent is to feel that you have been very bad, and to 
turn over a new leaf and to ask God's help and forgiveness; 
and when a man does that, they hear of it right away in 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HEAVEN. 383 

heaven. There are no gossips in heaven to go around and 
chatter and laugh when they hear that a man has fallen ; 
but when they hear that a man is saved then there are a 
great many to go around and tell the tidings; and it is 
astonishing how soon the news spreads from the North 
gate of heaven to the South gate, and from the Eastern 
gate to the Western gate. In ten minutes all the inhabi- 
tants know it, and " there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth." 

I would not be surprised if I had found out that there 
were heavenly congratulations over the day of Pentecost, 
when three thousand people were converted, or over the 
parish of Schotts when five hundred souls were converted, 
or over one of those years in the time of Harland Page, 
when forty thousand souls were converted, or over the year 
1857, when between three and four hundred thousand 
souls were converted. It would not astonish me if there 
were heavenly congratulations over such masses of people 
saved; but mark the emphasis of my text: " There is joy 
in heaven over one," — just one — " sinner that repenteth." 

You have often noticed churches with two towers. But 
I suppose that the temple of God on high may have four 
towers, and sometimes one of them rings, and sometimes 
they all ring. Here is a moral man. He never said a bad 
word. He never did a mean action. Everybody loves 
him. He is not a Christian; but after a while he sees 
that he is a sinner, and he cries to God, and he is saved, 
and one tower of heaven rings out with beautiful chime. 

Here is another man. He is very bad. He knows it. 
Everybody knows it. Still lie is kept in respectable society. 



384 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

He is far from being an outlaw. That man is converted 
to God. Now, two towers in heaven chime out the glori- 
ous tidings. 

Here is an outcast of society. Last night he was picked 
up out of the gutter and taken to the station-house. He 
has gone through all the crimes against God and man. 
He is utterly loathsome. Nobody wants to touch him. 
To-night, in all his wretchedness, he cries out: " Lord, 
help me ! Lord, forgive me ! " Now, three towers in 
heaven chime out the tidings. 

Yonder is a poor waif of the street. She has gone 
down until no one has any pity for her. As she goes 
under the gaslight and you see her, your soul shivers Avith 
a great horror. Going along, to-night, by the Midnight 
Mission, she hears Christians singing. They are singing a 
very beautiful tune: 

" All may come, whoever will, 
This man receives poor sinners still." 

And she puts into that harbor. She kneels down at the 
first bench she comes to, and she cries out: " Thou who 
didst have mercy on Mary Magdalen, take my bleeding 
feet off of the hot pavement of hell ! " Now, the four 
towers of heaven chime out the tidings; and they who 
pass along the streets say: " Hark ! some great news has 
come up. Some great sinner is saved; the four towers are 
ringing." And "there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth." 

We see first, in this subject, that we can augment the 
joy of heaven. 

I hear people talk as though they thought that heaven 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HEAVEN. 385 

was as happy as it could be. No ! No ! I think that one 
half of the harps are not yet strung, nor one half of the 
thrones mounted. When all this world is redeemed, do 
you not suppose that they will be happier in heaven about 
it? When that Christian mother who died, leaving her 
son a vagabond, hears in heaven that he has come to God, 
do you not suppose her joy is augmented ? When I was 
chaplain in the army, and I saw a sergeant with lathered 
horse, and blood on his spurs, dash past in full run, I 
said: "He has got some important message." Now look 
and see those two angels, wing to wing, flying for the 
throne of God. I see by their shining faces that they 
have good news to tell. What is the matter ? Do you tell 
me they cannot bring any joy to the glorified ? They will ! 
They will ! " For there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth." There is a man yonder, standing in the 
gallery, who, if he would, might light up a bonfire on the 
hills of heaven. He might, with the torch of his own re- 
pentance, kindle up great gladness there. When your 
little child was on earth, before the sweet thing flew away 
from you into heaven, how you used to try to make her 
happy — did you not ? You crowded your pockets many a 
time with gifts and you came home, and when your night- 
key rattled in the door she rushed out and cried: " Father, 
what you brought me ? " 0, now, that those loved ones are 
in glory, would you not like to give them new gladness ? 
You may, weeping father. You may, weeping mother. 
Your repentance, to-night, would be sufficient motive to 
send those children skipping with eternal gladness, for 

"there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 
25 



oSb NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

I believe that if this whole audience should, to-night, 
come to God, there would be as great joy in heaven as 
there ever has been there; perhaps greater joy than has 
ever been since the first pearly gate swung on its hinges; 
and instead of being a Pentecost of three thousand, it 
would be a turning to God of five thousand. 0, heaven 
smite with all thy hammers, to-night, and let our chains 
fall off. 0, Holy Spirit, with the gleaming sword of thy 
truth, strike, and let our souls be free. A general said to 
his army after they had gained a slight battle: "Hush, 
now; no shouting, no shouting." But itAVOuld be impos- 
sible to keep quiet the armies of heaven, to-night, if it were 
announced that we all had come to God. There would be 
shouting, shouting, shouting, for "there is joy in heaven 
among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." 

In some families they keep a vacant chair at the table, 
and the plate that was once occupied by the loved one who 
has gone away. That has been the habit in a great many 
families. Perhaps it may not have been in yours, because 
if you had kept vacant chairs for all those Avho have gone 
from you, there would have been more chairs for the dead 
than for the living. In heaven they have vacant chairs, 
not made so by death, for they never die there, but vacant 
chairs kept so by your loved ones, because they will not 
allow any one to sit there till you come up and occupy 
them. Father, mother, brother, sister, will you go there ? 
Will you start to-night? " Aye ! " says some one in this 
part of the house. " Aye ! " says some one in that part 
of the house. And " there is joy in heaven over one sin- 
ner that repenteth," 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HEAVEN. 387 

Again, my subject teaches me that heaven is not so very 
far off after all. I often hear people talk as though 
heaven were a great distance. The departed must go 
hundreds of thousands of miles until they get to a star, 
and then hundreds of thousands of miles until they get to 
another star, and then millions of miles from that and 
then they get to heaven. They tell us that heaven is the 
centre of the universe and that we are on the outer rim of 
the universe. But we have learned to calculate distance 
by the time it takes to travel it, and by the speed and the 
frequency of the intercommunication, and by that esti- 
mate, heaven is not far off. It certainly is not twelve 
hours off, for Jesus said to the dying thief: "this day — 
this day, shalt thou be with me in paradise." And I sup- 
pose that the wing of the soul, when it leaves the body, is 
so swift, that it does not take a day, or an hour, or a 
minute, or the ten thousandth part of a second for it to 
flash into glory; and as to the intercommunication, there 
are hundreds of souls every day going up from the church 
on earth to the church in heaven, and thousands of minis- 
tering spirits every day coming down from heaven to earth, 
and all the King's highway from earth to heaven is 
thronged with messengers, coming, going; coming, going ! 

Some years ago, a foolish undertaking was made, by 
which it was proposed to gain the attention of another 
world, and on the highest mountains of Siberia, it was 
proposed to build some mounds in mathematical figures 
with which to attract the attention of another world — a 
most preposterous undertaking. Blessed be God, we need 
go through no such artifices to attract the attention of 



388 KEW TABERNACLE SERMONS 

lieaven ! The heart of heaven beats close against the 
heart of this world, for "there is joy in heaven among 
the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." 

I had occasion to send a telegram, nnder the sea, and it 
being considerable expense, I put it in as small space as 
possible. You can send a very important telegram with 
two words. I have thought to-night that if ministering 
spirits flying up from this place to the throne of God, 
wanted to announce the redemption of any soul here, it 
would take only two words: "John repented," "Mary 
repented," "Father repented," "Mother repented," 
" child repented; " and " there is joy in heaven over one 
sinner that repenteth." 

Again: This subject teaches me that the salvation of the 
soul must be of surpassing importance. If you had made 
$100,000 in Wall street, that would not have been re- 
ported in heaven. If you had been elected President of 
the United States, perhaps that might not have been re- 
ported in heaven. When the French government passed 
from Thiers to McMahon, I do not suppose it was re- 
ported in heaven. When in the recent English elections, 
the contest was between Conservatives and Liberals, the 
result, I do not suppose, was reported in heaven. But 
there is one item that must go up, there is one thing that 
must be told. Let the flying hoofs of God's courier clash 
through the portals, and the news fly from gate to tem- 
ple, and from temple to mansion, and from mansion to 
throne, that one soul has been converted. 

A few years ago, among the White Mountains, a stage 
driver was very reckless. He had a large company of 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HEAVEN. 389 

passengers and drove six horses. Coming along a danger- 
ous place, the leaders shied off, and the stage was thrown 
over the rocks. A few men leaped out and were saved, 
others went down and were bruised and some were slain. 
When those who were saved got home, how their friends 
must have congratulated them, that they got off from all 
that peril. Well! the angels of God look down and see 
men driving along the edge of eternal disasters, drawn by 
leaping, foaming, uncontrollable perils; and when a man 
just before he comes to the fatal capsize, leaps off and 
comes away in safety, do you wonder that the angels of 
God clap their hands and cry: " Good! Good! saved from 
hell! Saved for heaven! Saved forever!" 

The redemption of a soul must be a very wonderful 
thing or heaven would not make such a time about it. 
It must be a great thing or there would not be so much 
excitement in that land where coronations are every-day 
occurrences, and the stones of the field are amethysts and 
chrysoprases. It takes a great thing to make the Supreme 
Court or the House of Congress adjourn — the death of a 
member or some very important event. It must be a great 
thing to make heaven adjourn all its honors and all other 
subjects, which thing it does when a soul is converted; for 
" there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 
Oh -yes, the matter of soul saving is so great a work, that 
I do not wonder that Bellamy, and Netfcleton, and Richard 
Cecil, and Fletcher, and George Whitefield, and Bishop 
Taylor, and Robert Hall, and Paul, and angels, and Christ, 
and God stripped themselves for the work. Around that 
one soul sweep to-night, in circle of cloud, and mist, and 



390 kew tabernacle sermons. 

fire, and song, and rapture, and woe, all God's universe. 
At its fall, devils beat the gongs of darkness. At its re- 
demption, heaven puts its lip to trumpet, its finger to 
harp, its hammer to bell; and " there is joy in heaven over 
one sinner that repenteth. " 

Now, it is on such a thing as that, I plead to-night. I 
bring a message from the throne of God: " Eepent, poor 
soul. Give up thy sin and take Christ." I ask you to 
make no experiment. I know what I am talking about. 
Over fifty years ago, my parents carried me to the old 
church at Somerville, and under the hands of Mr. Van 
Kleeck, the good minister, the waters of baptism were put 
upon my face; but that did not save me. Afterward, I 
learned to kneel at the family altar, and father and mother 
and a brother and a sister — all four of whom have been some- 
time in glory — were there. But that did not save me. 
Afterward, my brother Daniel said to me: " De Witt, if 
you would like to go to school and to college, and get an 
education, I will pay your way through." He kept the 
promise; but that did not save me. I have had a great 
many good friends, influential friends; but they could not 
save me. I read Doddridge's "Rise and Progress" and 
Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted" until I was almost 
wild; but that did not save me. I heard from Presbyte- 
rian pulpits and from Methodist camp-meetings sermons 
enough mighty to wake the dead; but they did not save 
me. Then, Christ came. He came with a brow red with 
carnage, and limping with the wound in the foot, and He 
said: "Poor soul, it is high time you took your foot off 
my bleeding heart. I forgive you. Repent ! Repent ! " 



THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HEAVEN. 391 

And though, there may have been greater joy in heaven 
over some other souls because of results wider reaching, 
still I know that when I gave my soul to Christ, there 
were some in heaven made happier by the thought; for 
" there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," 
and that is me ! 

Can you not come to-day, and give your heart to God ? 
Standing here, I really believe that if you do not come to 
God to-night, some of you never will. Some of you are 
putting it off for one thing, and others for another thing. 
Perhaps it is because you have to make some sacrifices in 
order to become Christians. Can you not make sacrifices ? 
I wish you could have heard the story of a young man 
who once stood up in this church. He had to give up a 
living for Christ. He was in a business that he thought 
Was inconsistent with the Christian service, and he said to 
his wife: " I can't be a Christian and do this." " Then/' 
she replied, "give up the business." They gave up their 
living, for Christ. What can you give up? "Oh," says 
some one here: " my heart is so hard. It is so full of sin, 
I can't look up." Can't you? Perhaps you can do as 
the boy did in the hospital. He said to the lad on the 
couch in the same ward of the hospital: "Jesus comes 
through these wards every night, and He takes away these 
children into heaven. I wonder why He don't take me ? 
I am so sick and I am so tired. I think to-night I shall 
hold up my hand while I sleep, and Jesus going through 
the wards of the hospital will see my hand up, and then 
He will know I want to go away with Him, and He will 
take me." The next morning, the nurse walked through 



392 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

the wards of the hospital, and sure enough Charlie was 
dead. He laid with one hand extended in the air, and by 
the other hand he held the elbow. During the night, 
Christ had walked through the wards of the hospital, and 
He had seen the wasted hand of the poor little sufferer 
lifted toward Him, and He answered the prayer, and took 
him. Oh soul, sick and dying in sin, can you not to-night, 
lift one hand of solicitation to Jesus of Nazareth as He 
passes by ? This very moment He bends over you. Oh 
Gospel-hardened man, oh Gospel-hardened woman, can 
you not this night try to catch the attention of the Mas- 
ter? And are you not willing to say: 

" I'm a sinner and nothing at all, 
But Jesus Christ is my all in all?" 



THE BEAUTIES OF SPRING. 



[Delivered in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Friday Evening, 
May 7th, 1886.] 



I have been to-day in rhapsody. From the rail- car 
window I saw in Pennsylvania and New Jersey one of the 
most glorious pageants of vernal splendor that any eye ever 
gazed on. The spring is born and the shower of to-night 
is its infant baptism from the fount of the clouds, the hills 
and mountains standing as sponsors. This is the first week 
of the lilacs — Persian flowers, but for many years Ameri- 
canized. Day before yesterday for the first they appeared 
in the gardens and fields. Most generous of flowers, for 
when the lilac throws out one bloom it throws out a 
thousand blooms, and they toss all at once against the 
gardens and the arbors a great purple sea of loveliness. 
That means the arrival of the full spring. I never feel 
sure that this season has arrived until this particular flower 
unfurls its glory. 

Often has this pleasant season been driven back. 
Marching up the mountain-side, ever and anon it was de- 
feated and hurled down the rocks, yet marching up again, 
it has planted its green standards on the topmost cliff, led 
on by bands of music in the treetops. The ploughs shar- 
pened their coulters and charged on the tufted glebe, and 
harrows with iron teeth chewed up the clods and sowers 
scattered the seed. The trees put bridal blossoms in their 



JTEW TABERXACLE SEEMOXS. 

hair and the waters clapped their hands with gladness, and 
ponds with multitudinous life made the bogs quake. 

Have you thought of the goodness >i God in making 
green the dominant color? If a dull brown had ruled, 
that would have depressed the nations with melancholv. 
or too much crimson would have made the eye weary with 
its intense blaze. Instead of that, to touch the eye with 
unwearying pleasure, God strews the earth with green, the 
color half way between the blue and the red. Aa 
monsters, struck by harpoons, shove quickly away, so 
black winter clouds, struck through by lances of light, 
swim off the heavens. Tree branches have pulled on their 
yea of verdure and roots their boots of sod. Buds 
burst like harmless bombshell-. watt ring aroma on the 
fields. Joy of fishes in the water. Joy of insects in the 
air. Joy of cattle in the fields. Joy of wings in the sky. 
ious and blessed God ! All this sunshine got its shape 
from Thy robes. All this verdure is only the track of Thy 
foot. All this music Thou didst strike from Thy harp. 
To-day at sunrise Nature went to morning prayers, read- 
ing the 14th psalm: " Praise ye the Lord, mountains and 
all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars. " Fowl in the yard. 
Flocks on the hill. Insects drinking dew from cups of 
hyacinth. Jasmine climbing over the stone wall. Eivers 
ng gold in their hands. Martins coming back to the 
rafters of the barn or becoming eaves- droppers of our 
houses. 

Have you thanked God for his goodness in this spring- 
time? The wind thanks him and hums its praise among 
the tree branches. The birds thank him, and for the drop 



THE BEAUTIES OF SPUING. 395 

of water they dip from the brook "fill all the sky with 
roundelay. The honey-suckles thank him and burn in- 
cense all the day. The sea thanks him with organ diapa- 
son of tempest. Ofttimes the human heart is the only 
silent and broken instrument in all this orchestra of earth 
and air and ocean. Do not let our ungrateful soul be the 
only discord in this grand march of the eighteen hundred 
and eighty-sixth springtide. 

See in all these capitals of the resurrection foliage the 
divine wisdom. Could ail the combined ingenuity of 
philosophers and artists and inventors make one dandelion ? 
The cup of one China aster holds more of the wine of 
wisdom than all nations could drink. What architect 
could plan the pillar of a pond lily? Break off the branch 
of a tree and know that in its sap is a wonderful chemistry 
of alum and sugar and tannin and salt and carbonate of 
lime, and know that God has given to the vegetable lungs 
and feet and ancestry as old as the ages, and descendants 
for all time, and that sometimes within a square inch it 
has 300,000 cells, any one of which it would take an infi- 
nite God to build. Explain to me, ye learned universities, 
one rutabaga ! Eise up, boasting philosophy of the world, 
and try if you can girdle one grain of corn. Oh, the 
shining firmament of one drop of dew ! Oh, the untrod- 
den continents in one crystal of snow ! Oh, the gorgeous- 
ness of upholstery in the mountain moss ! Oh, the trium- 
phal arch in one tree branch ! Oh, the God in an atom ! 
Where is the loom in which he wove the curtains of the 
morn ? From what vats of beauty were dipped the green 
and the blue and the gold and the crimson? In what 



396 X£W TABEEXACLE SEBMOXS. 

moulds were run out the Appenines and the Caucasian 
range? What harp of God gaye the warble to the lark 
and the sweet call of the robin and the carol to the canary 
and the chirp to the grasshopper ? The very wisdom that 
guides all your affairs and mine. He who pairs the birds, 
chose for us our companions. He who helps the chaffinch 
guard her brood will be the God of our children. He who 
last month helped a swallow build her nest will give us a hab- 
itation. He who this morning fed the squirrel in the woods 
will feed us. He who gathered the down for the pheas- 
ant's breast will give us apparel. He who swings a bridge 
of gossamer for the insect to walk over will mark out our 
pathway. Ye who are worried about your health and wor- 
ried about your property and worried about your children 
and worried about everything, listen to-morrow morning 
to one of the English sparrows flying out of the parks, and 
hear God say : "Ye are of more yalue than many sparrows. " 
And I am also impressed by the nest-building at this 
season going on in our orchards and woods and forests. 
What architects the birds are ! The eagle constructs its 
nest at some inaccessible height and of very rough materials, 
gathering the sticks with its claws and hoisting them from 
great distances. The eider-duck from her own breast 
takes the feathers to line her nest. The magpie encircles 
her home with briers to keep back intruders. The black- 
bird covers its nest with loam. I have examined birds' 
nests by the hour in amazement, finding them constructed 
with mathematical accuracy and skill surpassing human 
ingenuity, sometimes among the rocks, sometimes in the 
branches of trees, sometimes in the eaves cf houses, but 



THE BEAUTIES OF SPRING. ' 397 

always with reference to safety from enemies and tlie 
devastation of the elements. Would to God tliat we were 
as wise in building our nests ! He who builds in the 
honors and gains of the world builds too high. He who 
builds in sensualities builds too low. There are weasels, 
there are foxes, there are hawks of temptation that are 
hunting for prey, and the only safe tree in which to build 
a nest is the tree of the cross and the only safe rock the 
Rock of Ages. 

But this springtime, now fully begun, fills me with 
thoughts of what a superlative place heaven is. For if 
this earth, sin-blasted and cursed, can appear so beautiful, 
what must be the attractions of a sinless world. Our world 
is only the corpse of a dead paradise, the charred hulk of 
a giant vessel that foundered 6,000 years ago, and has ever 
since been beating on the rocks. It is only the ruins of a 
great temple, where lambs of innocence were to have been 
offered, but on whose altars swine and vultures have been 
sacrificed. Yet now, if the springtime reveals so much 
loveliness, although the original curse still reigns, what shall 
be the glory of that country from which sin shall be ex- 
cluded, and even suns and moons are too common, for " the 
Lamb shall be the light thereof ? " 

I would not dare to say that, in addition to the spiritual 
excellence of heaven, there will not be a physical beauty — 
a rose of Sharon, once trodden down by the horsehoofs of 
the crucifying soldiers, there in heaven, and the humble 
lily, transplanted from the valley to the heights of Leba- 
non, and the hawthorn, white and scarlet, reminding the 
beholder of his innocence and the blood which made him 



308 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

so, and the passion flower, living in this frigid world a day, 
there blooming in more temperate zones throughout the 
long years of God's lifetime; a river of life flowing over 
beds of precious stones and riches, not such as go down 
with wrecked argosies, but such as He alone could strew 
who hath sown the mountains with diamonds and the sea 
with pearl, and birds with wing never torn by sportsman 
or tempest, ever and anon dipping its surface, as you 
wander to its source and catch the crystal stream where it 
drops fresh from the everlasting rock. What a transition 
when we go into that eternal springtime and walk the 
hanging gardens of the king, the walls made up of layers, 
having in them the yellow of jasper, the blue of sapphire, 
the green of emerald and the fire of jacynth. And then 
stepping out of the garden into the temple, every hand on 
a harp, every voice taking the key of rapture, every foot 
on a throne, and sing, soft as slumbers yet loud as storms, 
chorus of elders, chorus of saints, chorus of martyrs, chorus 
of seraphim, chorus of cherubim, chorus of morning stars, 
" unto Him who hath loved us and washed us from our sins 
hi His own blood and made us kings and priests unto God 
and the Lamb forever and ever." Amen and amen. 



EASTER JOY. 



[The Brooklyn Tabernacle was elaborately decorated 
(April 25, 1886), both in platform and galleries. Within 
the church a scene of rare beauty was presented, the plat- 
form being covered with flowers arranged in various devices 
and breathing forth a delicate aroma. The building was so 
crowded that the doors were held open by the pressure, 
and many persons were turned away, being unable to get 
farther than the iron gates on the street. ] 

" Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits 
of them that slept."— 1 Cor. 15 : 20. 

Ox this glorious Easter morning, amid the music and 
the flowers, I give you Christian salutation. This morn- 
ing, Eussian meeting Eussian on the streets of St. Peters- 
burg hails him with the salutation, " Christ is risen ! " and 
is answered by his friend in salutation, " He is risen in- 
deed ! " In some parts of England and Ireland, to this 
very day, there is the superstition that on Easter morning 
the sun dances in the heavens; and well may we forgive 
such a superstition which illustrates the fact that the 
natural world seems to sympathize with the spiritual. 

Hail ! Easter morning. Flowers ! flowers ! All of them 
a- voice, all of them a-tongue, all of them full of speech 
to-day. I bend over one of the lilies and I hear it say: 
" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 
not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was 
not arrayed like one of these." I bend over a rose, and it 
seems to whisper: " I am the Eose of Sharon." And then 



400 NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS. 

I stand and listen. From all sides there comes the chorus 
of flowers, saying: "If God so clothed the grass of the 
field, which to-day is, and to-morroAV is cast into the oven, 
shall He not much more clothe you, ye of little faith ? " 

Flowers ! Flowers ! Braid them into the bride's hair. 
Flowers ! Flowers ! Strew them over the graves of the 
dead, sweet prophecy of the resurrection. Flowers ! 
Flowers ! Twist them into a garland for my Lord Jesus 
on Easter morning, and " Glory be to the Father, and to 
the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the begin- 
ning, is now, and ever shall be." 

Why, if a rainbow this morning had fallen and struck 
the platform, the scene could not have been more radiant. 
Oh, how bright and how beautiful the flowers, and how 
much they make me think of Christ and His religion, 
that brightens everything it touches, brightens our life, 
brightens our character, brightens society, brightens the 
Church, brightens everything ! You who go with gloomy 
countenance pretending you are better than I am because 
of your lugubriousness, you cannot cheat me. You old 
hypocrite ! I know you. Pretty case you are for a man 
that professes to be more than conqueror. It is not re- 
ligion that makes 3 T ou gloomy, it is the lack of it. There 
is just as much religion in a wedding as in a burial, just 
as much religion in a smile as in a tear. Those gloomy 
Christians we sometimes see are the people to whom I like 
to lend money, for I never see them again ! The women 
came to the Saviour's tomb and they dropped spices all 
around the tomb, and those spices were the seed that 
began to grow, and from them came all the flowers of this 



EASTER JOY. 401 

Easter morn. The two angels robed in white took hold 
of the stone at the Saviour's tomb and they hurled it with 
such force down the hill that it crushed in the door of the 
world's sepulchre, and the stark and the dead must come 
forth. 

I care not how labyrinthine the mausoleum or how 
costly the sarcophagus or however beautifully parterred the 
family grounds, we want them all broken up by the Lord of 
the resurrection. They must come out. Father and 
mother — they must come out. Husband and wife — they 
must come out. Brother and sister — they must come out. 
Our darling children — they must come out. The eyes 
that we close with such trembling fingers must open again 
in the radiance of that morn. The arms we folded in dust 
must join ours in an embrace of reunion. The voice that 
was hushed in our dwelling must be returned. Oh, how 
long some of you seem to be waiting — waiting for the 
resurrection, waiting ! And for these broken hearts to- 
day I make a soft, cool bandage out of Easter flowers. 

Six years ago the night before Easter, I received an 
Easter card on which there was a representation of that 
exquisite flower, the trumpet creeper, and under it the 
words: " The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall 
rise." There was especial reason why at that time I 
should have that card sent me, and I present the same 
consolation to-day to all in this house; and who has es- 
caped ? 

My friends, this morning, I find in the risen Christ a 

prophecy of our own resurrection, my text setting forth 

the idea that as Christ has risen so His people will rise. 
26 



402 NEW TABEKNACLE SEEMONS. 

He the first sheaf of the resurrection harvest. He "the 
first-fruits of them that slept." Before I get through this 
morning I will walk through all the cemeteries of the 
dead, through all the country graveyards, where your loved 
ones are buried, and I will pluck off these flowers, and I 
will drop a sweet promise of the Gospel — a rose of hope, a 
lily of joy on every tomb — the child's tomb, the husband's 
tomb, the wife's tomb, the father's grave, the mother's 
grave; and, while we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, 
we will at the same time celebrate the resurrection of all 
the good. " Christ the first-fruits of them that slept." 

If I should come to you this morning and ask you for 
the names of the great conquerors of the world, you would 
say Alexander, Caesar, Philip, Napoleon I. Ah ! my 
friends, you have forgotten to mention the name of a 
greater conqueror than all these — a cruel, a ghastly con- 
queror. He rode on a black horse across Waterloo and 
Atlanta and Chalons, the bloody hoofs crushing the hearts 
of nations. It is the conqueror, Death. 

He carries a black flag, and he takes no prisoners. He 
digs a trench across the hemispheres and fills it with the 
carcasses of nations. Fifty times would the world have 
been depopulated had not God kept making new genera- 
tions. Fifty times the world would have swung lifeless 
through the air — no man on the mountain, no man on 
the sea, an abandoned ship ploughing through immensity. 
Again and again has he done his work with all generations. 
He is a monarch as well as a conqueror; his palace a sepul- 
chre; his fountains the falling tears of a world. Blessed 
be God, in the light of this Easter morning I see the 



EASTER JOY. 403 

prophecy that his sceptre shall be broken, and his palace 
shall be demolished. The hour is coming when all who 
are in their graves shall come forth. Christ risen, we 
shall rise. Jesus " the first-fruits of them that slept." 
Now, around this doctrine of the resurrection there are a 
great many mysteries. 

You come to me this morning, and say, If the bodies 
of the dead are to be raised, how is this, and how is that ? 
and you ask me a thousand questions I am incompetent 
to answer; but there are a great many things you believe 
that you are not able to explain. You would be a very 
foolish man to say: " I won't believe anything I can't un- 
derstand." 

Why, putting down one kind of flower-seed, comes there 
up this flower of this color ? "Why, putting down another 
flower-seed, comes there up a flower of this color ? One 
flower white, another flower yellow, another flower crim- 
son. Why the difference when the seeds look to be very 
much alike — are very much alike ? Explain these things. 
Explain that wart on the finger. Explain the difference 
why the oak -leaf is different from the leaf of the hickory. 
Tell me how the Lord Almighty can turn the chariot of 
His omnipotence on a rose-leaf. You ask me questions 
about the resurrection I cannot answer. I will ask you a 
thousand questions about every-day life you cannot answer. 

I find my strength in this passage: "All who are in 
their graves shall come forth." I do not pretend to make 
the explanation. You go on and say: " Suppose a re- 
turned missionary dies in Brooklyn; when he was in 
China his foot was amputated; he lived years after in 



404 NEW TABEBNACLE SEBMONS. 

England, and there he had an arm amputated; he is 
buried to-day in Greenwood; in the resurrection will the 
foot come from China, will the arm come from England, 
and will the different parts of the body be reconstructed 
in the resurrection ? How is that possible ? " 

You say that "the human body changes every seven 
years, and by seventy years of age a man has had ten 
bodies; in the resurrection which will come up?" You 
say, " A man will die and his body crumble into the dust, 
and that dust be taken up into the life of the vegetable; 
an animal may eat the vegetable, men eat the animal; in 
the resurrection, that body, distributed in so many direc- 
tions, how shall it be gathered up ? " Have you any more 
questions of this style to ask ? Come on, and ask them. 
I do not pretend to answer them. I fall back upon the 
announcement of God's Word: "All who are in their 
graves shall come forth." 

You have noticed, I suppose, in reading the story of 
the resurrection, that almost every account of the Bible 
gives the idea that the characteristic of that day will be a 
great sound. I do not know that it will be very loud, but 
I know it will be very penetrating. In the mausoleum 
where silence has reigned a thousand years that voice must 
penetrate. In the coral cave of the deep that voice must 
penetrate. Millions of spirits will come through the gates 
of eternity and they will come to the tombs of the earth, 
and they will cry: " Give us back our bodies; we gave 
them to you in corruption, surrender them now in incor- 
ruption. Hundreds of spirits hovering about the crags of 
Gettysburg, for there the bodies are buried. A hundred 



EASTEK JOY. 405 

thousand spirits coming to Greenwood, for there the bodies 
are buried, waiting for the reunion of body and soul. 

All along the sea route from New York to Liverpool, at 
every few miles where a steamer went down, departed 
spirits coming back, hovering over the wave. There is 
where the City of Boston perished. Found at last. There 
is where the President perished. Steamer found at last. 
There is where the Central America went down. Spirits 
hovering — hundreds of spirits hovering, waiting for the 
reunion of body and soul. Out on the prairie a spirit 
alights. There is where a traveller died in the snow. 
Crash ! goes Westminster Abbey, and the poets and ora- 
tors come forth; wonderful mingling of good and bad. 
Crash ! go the Pyramids of Eygpt, and the monarchs come 
forth. 

Who can sketch the scene ? I suppose that one moment 
before that general rising there will be an entire silence, 
save as you hear the grinding of a wheel, or the clatter of 
the hoofs of a procession passing into the cemetery. 
Silence in all the caves of the earth. Silence on the side 
of the mountain. Silence down in the valleys and far out 
into the sea. Silence! But in a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, as the archangel's trumpet comes pealing, rolling, 
crashing across the mountain and sea, the earth will give 
one terrific shudder, and the graves of the dead will heave 
like the waves of the sea, and Ostend and Sebastopol and 
Chalons will stalk forth in the lurid air, and the drowned 
will come up and lift up their wet locks above the billow; 
and all the land and all the sea become one moving mass of 
life — all faces, all ages, all conditions gazing in one direc- 



406 NEW TABERXACLE SERMOXS. 

tion and upon one throne — the throne of resurrection. 
"All who are in their graves shall come forth." 

" But," you say, "if this doctrine of the resurrection is 
true, as prefigured by this Easter morning, Christ ' the 
first-fruits of them that slept/ Christ rising a promise 
and a prophecy of the rising of all His people, can you 
tell us something about the resurrected body ? " I can. 
There are mysteries about that, but I shall tell you three 
or four things in regard to the resurrected body that are 
beyond guessing and beyond mistake. 

I. In the first place, I remark in regard to your resur- 
rected body: it will be a glorious body. The body we have 
now is a mere skeleton of what it would have been if sin 
had not marred and defaced it. Take the most exquisite 
statue that was ever made by an artist, and chip it here 
and chip it there with a chisel, and batter and bruise it 
here and there, and then stand it out in the storms of a 
hundred years, and the beauty would be gone. Well, the 
human body has been chipped and battered and bruised 
and damaged with the storms of thousands of years — the 
physical defects of other generations coming down from 
generation to generation, we inheriting the infelicities of 
past generations; but in the morning of the resurrection 
the body will be adorned and beautified according to the 
original model. And there is no such difference between 
a gymnast and an emaciated wretch in a lazaretto, as there 
will be a difference between our bodies as they are now 
and our resurrected forms. 

There you will see the perfect eye, after the waters of 
death have washed out the stains of tears and studv. 



EASTER JOY. 407 

There you will see the perfect hand, after the knots of toil 
have been untied from the knuckles. There you will see 
the form erect and elastic, after the burdens have gone off 
the shoulder — the very life of God in the body. 

In this world, the most impressive thing, the most ex- 
pressive thing, is the human face; but that face is veiled 
with the griefs of a thousand years; but in the resurrection 
morn that veil will be taken away from the face, and the 
noonday sun is dull and dim and stupid compared with 
the outflaming glories of the countenances of the saved. 
When those faces of the righteous, those resurrected faces, 
turn toward the gate, or look up toward the throne, it 
will be like the dawning of a new morning on the bosom 
of everlasting day ! glorious, resurrected body ! 

II. But I remark also in regard to that body, which you 
are to get in the resurrection, it will be an immortal body. 
These bodies are wasting away. Somebody has said as soon 
as we begin to live we begin to die. Unless we keep putting 
the fuel into the furnace the furnace dies out. The blood- 
vessels are canals taking the breadstuff's to all parts of the 
system. We must be reconstructed hour by hour, day by 
day. Sickness and death are all the time trying to get their 
prey under the tenement, or to push us off the embankment 
of the grave; but, blessed be God, in the resurrection we 
will get a body immortal. No malaria in the air, no cough, 
no neuralgic twinge, no rheumatic pang, no fluttering of 
the heart, no shortness of breath, no ambulance, no dis- 
pensary, no hospital, no invalid's chair, no spectacles to 
improve the dim vision; but health, immortal health ! 
ye who have aches and pains indescribable this morning — 



40S XEW TAUEKXACEE SERMOXS. 

O ye who are never well — ye who are lacerated with 
physical distresses, let me tell you of the resurrected body, 
free from all disease. Immortal ! Immortal ! 

III. I go further, and say in regard to that body which 
you are to get in the resurrection, it will be a powerful 
body. We walk now eight or ten miles, and we are 
fatigued; we lift a few hundred pounds, and we are ex- 
hausted; unarmed, we meet a wild beast, and we must 
run, or fly, or climb, or dodge because we are incompetent 
to meet it; we toil eight or ten hours vigorously, and then 
we are weary; but in the resurrection we are to have a body 
that never gets tired. Is it not a glorious thought? 

Plenty of occupation in heaven. I suppose Broadway, 
Xew York, in the busiest season of the year, at noonday, 
is not so busy as heaven is all the time. Grand projects 
of mercy for other worlds. Victories to be celebrated. 
The downfall of despotisms on earth to be announced. 
Great songs to be learned and sung. Great expeditions on 
which God shall send forth His children. Plenty to do, 
but no fatigue. If you are seated under the trees of life, 
it will not be to rest, but to talk over with some old com- 
rade old times — the battles where you fought shoulder 
to shoulder. 

Sometimes in this world we feel we would like to have 
such a body as that. There is so much work to be done 
for Christ, there are so many tears to be wiped away, there 
are so many burdens to lift, there is so much to be achieved 
for Christ, we sometimes wish that from the first of 
January to the last of December we could toil on without 
stopping to sleep, or take any recreation, or to rest, or 



EASTER JOY. 409 

even to take food — that we could toil right on without 
stopping a moment in our work of commending Christ 
and heaven to all the people. But we all get tired. 

It is a characteristic of the human body in this condi- 
tion; we must get tired. Is it not a glorious thought that 
after a while, after the service of God, we are going to 
have a body that Will never get weary ? glorious resur- 
rection day ! Gladly will I fling aside this poor body of 
sin and fling it into the tomb, if at Thy bidding I shall 
have a body that never wearies. That was a splendid 
resurrection hymn that was sung at my father's burial: 

So Jesus slept, God's dying- Son 
Passed through the grave and blessed the bed. 
Rest here, blest saint, till from His throne 
The morning breaks to pierce the shade." 

blessed resurrection ! Speak out, sweet flowers, beau- 
tiful flowers. While you tell of a risen Christ, tell of the 
righteous who shall rise. May God fill you this morning 
with anticipation ! 

1 heard of a father and son who, among others, were 
shipwrecked at sea. The father and the son climbed into 
the rigging. The father held on, but the son after a while 
lost his hold in the rigging and was dashed down. The 
father supposed he had gone hopelessly under the wave. 
The next day the father was brought ashore from the 
rigging in an exhausted state, and laid in a bed in a fisher- 
man's hut, and after many hours had passed he came to 
consciousness, and saw lying beside him on the same bed 
his boy. Oh, my friends ! what a glorious thing it will be 



410 NEW TABERNACLE SEILMOXS. 

if we wake up at last to find our loved ones beside us ? 
coming up from the same plot in the graveyard, coming 
up in the same morning light — the father and son alive 
forever, all the loved ones alive forever, nevermore to 
weep, nevermore to part, nevermore to die. 

May the God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, 
through the blood of that everlasting covenant, make you 
perfect in every good work, to do His will; and let this 
brilliant scene of the morning transport our thoughts to 
the grander assemblage before the throne. This august 
assemblage is nothing compared with it. The one hun- 
dred and forty and four thousand, and the " great multi- 
tude that no man can number," some of our best friends 
among them, we, after a while, to join the multitude. 
Blessed anticipation. 

" Blest are the saints beloved of God, 
Washed are their robes in Jesu's blood, 
Brighter than angels, lo ! they shine, 
Their wonders splendid and sublime. 

" My soul anticipates the day, 
Would stretch her wings and soar away. 
To aid the song, the palm to bear, 
And bow, the chief of sinners, there." 




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